See:
Intro to CPL(sf): the twenty-second revision
Glynns: (My art is made of recollection, and revision, and wishful thinking.)

NOTE: One of the inspirations for the diversity of The Complete Peter Leroy (so far) surely must have been a book called Oysters and All About Them, by John R. Philpott. I came upon this book, once upon a time, in the Marlborough, Massachusetts, library, and I wish I had stolen it when I had the chance. The edition I found was the third or fourth, I think. The first edition was a rather slim book, and at the end of it Philpott apologized for falling so far short of the "all about them" promise, but he invited readers to help him along the road to fulfilling it by sending him what they could about oysters. When he issued the second edition, he wrapped it around the first, the way an oyster would add another layer of nacre in making a pearl. The edition I had found was four layers deep. There was the preface to the fourth edition, then stuff added since the third edition, and then you went into the third edition itself (which contained a preface to the third edition, then stuff added since the second . . . and so on) and then when you emerged from all the older editions, you were back in the fourth edition, with letters from readers about the third edition, written in response to the appeal that Philpott had included at the end of the third edition, and finally Philpott's fourth appeal for assistance from the readers. 

    Julius drew himself up.  “I don’t write for the sake of amusement,” he answered nobly. “The joy that I feel in writing is superior to any that I might find in living.  Moreover, the one is not incompatible with the other.”
    “So they say,” replied Lafcadio.  Then abruptly raising his voice, which he had dropped as though inadvertently: “Do you know what it is I dislike about writing? — All the scratchings out and touchings up that are necessary.”
    “Do you think there are no corrections in life too?” asked Julius, beginning to prick up his ears.
    “You misunderstand me.  In life one corrects oneself — one improves oneself — so people say; but one can’t correct what one does.  It’s the power of revising that makes writing such a colorless affair — such a . . .”  (He left his sentence unfinished.)  “Yes!  That’s what seems to me so fine about life.  It’s like frescoe-painting — erasures aren’t allowed.”

Dencombe was a passionate corrector, a fingerer of style; the last thing he ever arrived at was far from final for himself.  His ideal would have been to publish secretly, and then, on the published text, treat himself to the terrified revise, sacrificing always a first edition and beginning for posterity and even for the collectors, poor dears, with a second.

It was an age of the present tense, the stevedore style.  To achieve this virile, crude effect authors were tearing up second, third, and tenth revised drafts to publish their simple unaffected notes, plain, untouched, with all the warts and freckles of infancy.  The older writers who had taken twenty years to learn their craft were in a bewildering predicament, learning, alas, too late, that Pater, Proust, and Flaubert had betrayed them, they would have learned better modern prose by economizing on Western Union messages.

A Topical Guide to the Complete Peter Leroy (so far) is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

All rights reserved. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. 

Portions of A Topical Guide to the Complete Peter Leroy (so far) were first published by Voyager, Inc., as part of The Complete Peter Leroy (so far).

The illustration at the top of the page is an adaptation of an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. The boy at the controls of the aerocycle doesn’t particularly resemble Peter Leroy—except, perhaps, for the smile.