Pynchon Early Stories Pirate Editions

Prior to the publication of his first novel, Pynchon wrote a number of short stories for various publications (three published in his alma mater Cornell’s publications), as well as a couple articles, for The Saturday Evening Post and New York Times Magazine, after V. was published. A gent named Jim Pennington in London decided to make these various stories and articles more available and began publishing them as “Aloes Books.” Several others appeared published by other folks. Although not completely okay with it, neither Pynchon nor his publishers got too heavy with these copyright breaches.

Here’s an excellent article on Pennington and Aloes Books. And this article provides more background and explains how to tell first editions from subsequent printings.