I suggest that we both keep them, not limited in time, for emergency use.

Robert is in good spirits, but quite weak, with nurses around the clock. The incision looks huge to my inexperienced eyes, and it had a drain in it until yesterday :...

February 12, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

This new novel is probably closer to mainstream than science fiction than any Robert has done...he wants to have some sort of mass distribution on it, either by early paperback or serial, or perhaps both. The paperback business doesn't seem to cut much into the trade edition sales, whereas the Doubleday Book Club does. If we can't get serial or early paperback publication, we'll reluctantly let it go into a book club edition. The sales on The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress proved my point on that.

February 26, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Just returned from the hospital, and Bob was trying to eat lunch...he ate his whole egg for breakfast, and I don't know how much more, but he's still getting IV feeding, and is very unsteady on his feet. But at least we're away from the wheelchair, and he goes out into the corridors to walk. He'd refused to leave his room for about a month, and this is [a] considerable breakthrough. Also, I gave him The Insult Dictionary, and he started reading it, which is better than the detergent dramas and quiz shows, etc., he's been watching on TV.

I urn also sending a letter from Lady Gollancz. Robert read this letter, and said firmly, "No bowdlerization." So will you please tell [her] politely to go to hell? The passage referred to is the one in which the hero feels sorry for the victim rather than the criminal. She wanted to take it out.

EDITOR'S NOTE: By this time, publishers in many countries were putting out Robert's work, especially his juveniles.

Several British publishers had contracts for books, among them Gollancz. The chief of that firm had been knighted by the crown-Sir Victor Gollancz. When Sir Victor died, his wife took over the firm.

When they were about to publish one of the juveniles (and I am not sure now just which one it was), Lady Gollancz asked whether she might omit several sentences dealing with punishment of a character for a crime he had committed. The law on this point is firm, both here and in the UK: no publisher of a reprint edition may make changes in copy once the sale is made, without the written consent of the author.

So Robert refused her request to make the change.

Yesterday, over in Santa Cruz, I ran across a note Robert had made about the new book. Sorry I can't quote it in full, but he said, "This may be my last novel. I am not going to let some editor cut it when he doesn't understand it completely." He's always said that this story couldn't be cut because of its complexity...although I thought it should be. It is possible that he's right. In any case, this is something that will have to be done cautiously rather than trying to fit it into a Procrustean bed. He did do some cutting before the final typing and Xeroxing. I read it and proofed and made changes, where the typist had made mistakes. And the cut version is a lot faster than the first one was!

March 7, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I know that [Robert] has definite ideas about what he wants in the new book contract, bul*he just says, "You and Lurton handle it," so we'll have to stall a while longer.

March 31, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Robert is pleased with the serial sale [of / Will Fear No Evil to If]. He had every intention of having serial publication on it, if possible.

The doctors are very pleased with Bob's progress, but he still spends most of the time in bed, and is really not up to doing any work at all. Besides, sometimes his mind isn't as sharp as it usually is, and we hope that by the time this copy-editing is completed, he'll be up to looking at it...And having had the close brush with eternity he recently had, he's going to make some changes in his way of living. Just what those changes will be remains to be seen. It will probably include such things as no speeches (he finds them quite disturbing), no interviews, etc.

April 8, 1970: Lurton Blassingame to Virginia Heinlein

Rush me Xerox of your power of attorney. We need to attach it to the new Putnam contract.

November 20, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

The reviewers seem to be complaining about the lack of explicit sex in / Will Fear No Evil. One said, "The Victorian Mr. Heinlein -- " Does any book ever please reviewers?

January 14, 1971: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Thank you very much for the article from the New York Times. I will salaam to the Boss every morning from now on. How does one person get to be the hero of the New Right, Women's lib, and the hippie culture all in the same breath? We must all be schizophrenic!

CHAPTER XII

TRAVEL

August 6, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Back home to a bushel of mail and a constantly ringing phone-I wonder why we came back! But it was a fine trip-Jackson's Hole, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone Park, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Sun Valley, the "Days of '47" at Salt Lake City, Zion Park, North Rim of the Grand Canyon-where we rode mules down to the floor of the Canyon-then Bryce Canyon, thence through the main range to Aspen, and finally home.

AROUND THE WORLD I

August 17,1953: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein...very excited to hear plans for the round-the-world trip.

September 25, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

We sail from New Orleans on 12 November and will leave here about 7 November. I am sorry to say that I will not be on the East Coast either coming or going, as we leave from the Gulf and return via San Francisco...

We have our trip about lined up, having each received permission from the Navy Department, having received passports, having booked passage for the two principal legs of the trip. We've been vaccinated, shot for cholera, typhoid and paratyphoid, tetanus; will be stuck for yellow fever on Wednesday. Ginny is down seeing about visas right now, but all the main hurdles are passed. I will supply exact times and places later but here is how it shapes up now: By freighter S.S. Gulf Shipper (U.S. registry) New Orleans, Panama Canal, half a dozen west S.A. ports to Valparaiso, fly over Andes to Buenos Aires, embark cargo-liner (swimming pool and such) M.S. Ruys (Dutch), then Montevideo, Santos, and Rio de Janeiro, across South Atlantic to Cape Town, after which the ship hits half a dozen East African ports and Zanzibar, ending in Kenya before starting across Indian

Ocean for Mauritius and Singapore. I want to leave the ship for a week at Cape Town to visit Kruger National Park, but Ginny insists that lions can open automobile doors-nevertheless, I want to make that motor trip and see lions, elephants, etc., in native habitat.

We leave the ship in Singapore and have booked no farther, I plan to visit Java and Bali at least and wind up at Darwin, Australia-we are trying to arrange booking for an island freighter now; if that doesn't work, we will visit the islands by airline and end up at Darwin anyway. Then we fly to Sydney, stay as long as we like in Australia, go to New Zealand, where we intend to visit both North and South Islands (there is an N.Z. airline that has a circle route), and eventually back home via the Fiji and Hawaiian Islands and San Francisco.

October 24, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

As you can see, this is my "strike-out" letter-even though I may write again. You will see, too, that I have (with fantastic ingenuity and smug planning) placed all the real dope on page two, which you can now stick up on your bulletin board, or something. We'll send you postcards of calabozos and hippos and things. If I don't return on time, just forward my personal effects to Tahiti, fourth beachcomber from the left.