Update on the Cockatrice Colophon

 A few weeks ago, I posted a lengthy blog entry on the mysterious colophon implanted by the Del Reys onto their new line of Ballantine fantasy books in 1977. Thanks to reading Anthony's A Spell for Chameleon, I thought the colophon a basilisk at first but after consulting with Douglas Anderson, we concluded that it was probably a cockatrice ... which I found interesting because Doug, apparently, had always heard the symbol referred to as a griffin, even though griffins aren't two-legged critters.

Anyway, after some more digging, I found a few other tidbits. In Piers Anthony's second autobiography, How Precious Was That While, I found the following passage (p. 134):

So, one of the unanswered questions from my original post was, "Why did Lester del Rey apply his signature colophon to certain fantasy novels but not others?" The answer, apparently, turns out to be spite. After checking Donaldson's book covers on the ISFDB, Anthony's story checks out -- there was a missing colophon on the first paperback printing of The Wounded Land, which inaugurated The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

Once I showed Doug this passage, he took the next logical step and plundered the vastly informative Gradual Interview on Donaldson's website. He pulled up several items related to del Rey, but the following was best:

I'm glad you liked "The One Tree." I can't comment on my "stones," "serious" or otherwise <grin>, but I can tell you this: Lester del Rey did more than just cringe. After a long fight about the book, he told me that Ballantine Books was no longer willing to publish me. The sticking point was not leaving the Land, however: it was Linden Avery's role as the protagonist (POV character) of the book. During the course of the fight, he said such things as:

• "You can't have a Tarzan book with Jane as the main character" and
• "If I publish this book the way you've written it, it will destroy my publishing program" and
• "You don't need to understand why I want the book rewritten. You will rewrite it because I'm your editor and I so say."

So how come Ballantine Books remained my publisher? you may well ask. Because six or seven hours of this fight took place in the presence of Dick Krinsley (then president of Ballantine) and Marc Jaffe (then editor-in-chief). And when I refused to abandon my position (my artistic integrity), they simply informed Lester that he was no longer my editor. Instead they appointed a new editor for me, and told Lester that he could, in essence, "like it or lump it."

Neither Lester nor Judy-Lynn del Rey ever forgave me (although I think Lester came close after reading "Mordant's Need"). If you'll look at any printing of "The One Tree" in paperback that occurred before Lester's death (he out-lived Judy-Lynn by some years), you'll see that his personal "griffin" symbol (his imprimatur, his seal of approval) does not appear on the cover--although it *does* appear on "White Gold Wielder" (probably because the "The One Tree" was a massive bestseller, and he and Judy-Lynn didn't want to make themselves look foolish).

A strange situation in a number of ways. Lester and I had several significant fights about the first "Chronicles," as well as about "The Wounded Land"; but in each case he just kept on explaining himself until I finally understood his criticisms--and then he allowed me to find my own solutions to the problems. Why he changed his approach for "The One Tree," I'll never know. The only "explanation" he ever gave me was pure gender stereotyping: he said that women are inherently "internal" while men are inherently "external," and that therefore no woman could ever be an effective POV character for world-building. Go figure *that* out.

So, a couple of things from this revealing anecdote stand out. First, the troublesome book in question was The One Tree, not The Wounded Land. Next, even Donaldson seemed to inaccurately consider the colophon a griffin. Finally, the cockatrice colophon apparently functioned as Del Rey's official stamp-of-approval -- a minor bit of prestige to fantasy novels he particularly admired.

Also interesting is how closely the portrait of del Rey painted by Donaldson matches Anthony's description. Both describe del Rey as someone who gave phenomenal editorial advice in the early years, then gradually become more arbitrary and less insightful in his commentary as Ballantine/del Rey became a publishing powerhouse of fantasy.***

Also also interesting is del Rey's clear chauvinism. For people critical of popular "commercial" fantasy, del Rey seemed to have actively worked to hinder the genre's feminist potential. It's also significant, however, that critics overwhelmingly still don't give Donaldson credit for his ardent feminism, and they instead prefer to lump him into a category of generic Tolkien clones without literary earnestness.

There's a coda to my colophon story, however.

After finally receiving Anthony's first autobiography, Bio of an Ogre, I just came across the following passage about his Apprentice Adept series, a combined SF/fantasy set of books:

So what happened? Del Rey (now the genre arm of Ballantine, possessing its own hardcover facility) put both their fantasy basilisk and their science fiction bedspring on the volumes. (218-19)

So, firstly, Anthony himself thinks the colophon a basilisk. This was my original guess, as my first post mentioned. (In that post, I also suggested that Anthony perhaps didn't realize that basilisks and cockatrices were two different mythological animals.) Secondly, Anthony calls the SF colophon a "bedspring." To my eye, it more closely resembles a vortex ... a sign, perhaps, that maybe nobody really understands any of del Rey's colophons.

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***Of course, in How Precious Was That While, Anthony does get some details about the Donaldson/del Rey dispute wrong, probably because he heard the story second-hand. For instance, the fight had nothing to do with an illustration ... although, tellingly, Donaldson did raise a ruckus in another context about the book covers of Darrell K. Sweet, whom Lester championed as the best fantasy artist ever.