Evangeline Walton in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series

It was Paul Spencer, an acquaintance of Lin Carter’s in the James Branch Cabell Society, who recommended The Virgin and the Swine (1936), by Evangeline Walton (1907-1996), for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. Lin Carter and Betty Ballantine read it and approved of it, and they sought the author about reprint rights, initially thinking that she might be dead.  But they found that she had renewed the copyright in 1964, and contact was made, and a contract secured.

Both were happily surprised to learn that Walton had further unpublished manuscripts reworking other branches of the Mabinogion. She had initially planned to do only the fourth branch, but after it was published in 1936, she received a fan letter from John Cowper Powys, who encouraged her to continue with the other branches. Walton reworked the second and third branches into one huge novel of one hundred and eighty thousands words called The Brothers of Branwen, but she had troubles finding a publisher. Powys suggested she use his own literary agents in London (Pearn, Pollinger and Higham), and in July 1940 they nearly succeeded in selling The Brothers of Branwen to the Bodley Head, but the publisher got cold feet because of the size of the book and the paper shortages in England during the Second World War. After this, Walton ceased offering the manuscript to publishers.

After The Island of the Mighty (retitled from The Virgin and the Swine) was re-published by Ballantine in 1970, Walton returned to the manuscript of The Brothers of Branwen and split it into two books. In revised form these were published as The Children of Llyr and The Song of Rhiannon. In his introduction to The Children of Llyr, Carter noted that “as with the previous book, we decided to change the original title. Miss Walton had suggested The Doom of the Dark Woman, but the original tale upon which it was based was known widely in studies of Welsh and Irish mythological literature as ‘the tale of the children of Llyr.’ ” 

After The Song of Rhiannon was published, Walton returned to the first branch of the Mabinogion, which she had left unfinished after The Brothers of Branwen had failed to achieve publication, and the resultant Prince of Annwn was published by Ballantine in 1974, several months after the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series had ended. Thus Prince of Annwn  is not officially part of the series proper, and it (unlike the other three volumes) has no introduction from Lin Carter. After an article by Patrick Merla appeared in the 4 November 1972 issue of The Saturday Review, Carter’s introductions were replaced in most printings with an extract from Patrick Merla’s piece (the extract is identical in all books).  

Pan/Ballantine U.K. editions of the first three volumes were published in 1972 and 1973, but they did not publish the fourth book. Ballantine reprinted each of the four volumes a number of times (including Canadian printings), and a boxed-set of all four volumes was issued in November 1974. 

The original cover artists were Bob Pepper (for the first book) and David McCall Johnston (for the subsequent three), and Walton liked these covers very much. But she disliked the new covers by Howard Koslow put on all four volumes in 1978-79.  The printings with the Koslow covers were distributed in the U.K. in April 1980. 

Ballantine tinkered with the original covers as they reprinted the books, sometimes adding black or white spines, sometimes reversing the wrap-around cover art (making what had been on the reverse of the book into the front cover and vice versa).

I have marked the printings that I am missing as “not seen.”  If any reader of this blog has any of these printings and can supply scans of the covers, title and copyright pages, I’ll be grateful. Contact me at nodens100 at gmail dot com.

The Island of the Mighty

“First Printing: July, 1970” [Cover by Bob Pepper.]

“Second Printing: November, 1974” [Cover reversed, white spine.]

“Third Printing: November 1975”[Cover identical to Second Printing.]

“Third Printing: July 1977” [Actually the Fourth Printing.] [Cover orientation 

            matching Third Printing, but now has a black spine, and the Del Rey 

            logo on the upper cover.]

“Fifth printing: February 1979” [Cover by Howard Koslow.]

London:  Pan/Ballantine, [May] 1972

[The Lin Carter Introduction is only in the First Printing (and in the Pan/Ballantine printing). The Second through Fifth printings contain:  “On Evangeline Walton and Magic” by Patrick Merla, reprinted from The Saturday Review, 4 November 1972.]

1st printing

2nd and 3rd printings

4th printing

5th printing

 The Children of Llyr

“First Printing: August, 1971” [Cover by David McCall Johnston.]

“Second Printing: November, 1974” [Reverses cover illustration, white spine.] 

“Third Printing: November, 1975” [Cover identical to Second Printing.]

Third Printing: July 1977 [Actually the Fourth Printing.] [Not seen.]

“Fifth Printing: December 1978” [Cover art by Howard Koslow.]

London:  Pan/Ballantine, [May] 1972

[The Lin Carter Introduction is only in the First Printing (and the Pan/Ballantine printing). The Second through Fifth printings contain:  “On Evangeline Walton and Magic” by Patrick Merla, reprinted from The Saturday Review, 4 November 1972.]

1st printing

2nd and 3rd printings

5th printing

 

The Song of Rhiannon

“First Printing: August, 1972” [Cover by David McCall Johnston.]

“Second U.S. Printing: September, 1973”  [Cover identical to First Printing.]

“Third U.S. Printing: November 1974” [Reverses cover illustration, white spine.]

Fourth Printing: November 1975  [Not seen.]

“Fifth Printing: January 1979”  [Uncredited cover art by Howard Koslow.]

First Canadian Printing: September, 1972  [Noted in the “Second U.S. Printing: 

September, 1973”.]

London:  Pan/Ballantine, [December] 1973 

[The Lin Carter Introduction is only in the First and Second printings (and the Canadian and Pan/Ballantine printings). The Third through Fifth printings contain:  “On Evangeline Walton and Magic” by Patrick Merla, reprinted from The Saturday Review, 4 November 1972.]

1st and 2nd printings

3rd printing

5th printing

Prince of Annwn

“First Printing: November, 1974” [Cover by David McCall Johnston.]

“Second Printing: May, 1975”  [White spine.]

Third Printing: January 1977 [Not seen.]

Fourth Printing:  November 1977 [Not seen.]

“Fifth Printing: November 1978” [Uncredited cover art by Howard Koslow.]  [All copies seen are priced $1.75, but it is reported that some “Fifth Printing” copies are priced $1.95. This has not been seen by me.]

[All printings of Prince of Annwn have an introduction “On Evangeline Walton and Magic” by Patrick Merla, reprinted from The Saturday Review, 4 November 1972.]

1st printing

2nd printing

5th printing

Thanks to Jon Preece, Bill Lloyd, and Trevor Livelton for assistance on this entry.