Publishing Fitz-James O’Brien

A reader recently asked me if Swan River Press would ever consider publishing an edition of Robert W. Chambers’s classic collection The King in Yellow (1895). While I love that book, and own multiple early editions, it didn’t take me long to form a response: No, we would not.

The main reason for this decision is that The King in Yellow is already available in myriad editions: hardback and paperback, complete and incomplete collections, not to mention volumes that feature broader selections of Chambers’s weird fiction. Take your pick! When asked whether or not Swan River might consider an edition of this book, the real question I was faced with was this: Is there something new Swan River Press could bring to such an endeavour?

So when John P. Irish approached me with the idea for what would become Swan River Press’s Collected Speculative Works of Fitz-James O’Brien, I asked myself the same question: What could we do with such a project that hasn’t already been done? After all, there are already some good editions of FJOB’s work out there, including Doubleday’s two-volume set edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson (1988), later reissued by Ash Tree Press in 2008 with Salmonson’s excellent introduction. Stories such as “The Diamond Lens” and “What Was It?” are already heavily anthologised too—and if you’ve not yet read these stone-cold classics, you should. Despite this availability, I was still interested in publishing this pivotal Irish writer who worked so brilliantly and so broadly in the post-Gothic tradition of Poe. So what could we do that would add something new?

For those of you unfamiliar, here’s some brief background on FJOB:

Fitz-James O’Brien (1826/8-1862) was born in Co. Cork, Ireland. Early in life, he published poetry, but soon turned to short fiction, a mode that would define his legacy. After squandering his inheritance in London, he emigrated to America in 1852. There, O’Brien flourished as a writer, following Edgar Allan Poe’s influence, memorably experimenting in fantasy, science fiction, and horror fiction. He enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War and died in 1862 after being wounded in battle. (For a full biographical sketch of FJOB, check out The Green Book 18.)

A volume of FJOB’s work never manifested during his lifetime—although he did plan one, even going so far as to list his preferred selection (the full background of this proposed book can be found in “A Note on the Text” in the Swan River edition). Realising FJOB’s original volume was one of the ideas that John and I discussed. However, much as I like this approach (see Bram Stoker’s Old Hoggen and Other Dark Adventures), this idea was ultimately rejected as there wasn’t as much genre content as our readers might like.

FJOB’s work wasn’t formally collected until 1881, nearly twenty years after the author’s death. That volume, The Poems and Stories of Fitz-James O’Brien, was published in Boston, Massachusetts by James Osgood and Company. The problem with this edition, while still a landmark volume of fantastical fiction, is that the editor, FJOB’s friend William Winter, heavily edited the texts. These texts edited by Winter were often reprinted over the subsequent decades. It wasn’t until  the mid-1980s that Jessica Amanda Salmonson unearthed the original magazine versions, publishing them in the aforementioned Doubleday set. My copy of Poems and Stories, a rebound ex libris copy (Norwich University), sits proudly on my shelf. In fact, elements from this book did made their way into our edition. More on that in a moment.

There were numerous other volumes of FJOB’s work published over the years, but they tend to focus on the already (rightfully) well-known stories—but often reprinting the versions edited by William Winter instead of FJOB’s original texts. And again, our readers are not just readers, they are also collectors and connoisseurs. They expect more from Swan River Press. They want something different, something new.

John and I considered other possibilities for this project, but eventually settled on a rather ambitious (for SRP, at least!) three-volume set that would present FJOB’s speculative writing in chronological order. We felt this approach would best showcase FJOB’s trajectory as he developed his craft. Additionally, John unearthed a number of stories and poems that had hitherto not been reprinted since their original magazine appearances. All this would be complemented by three comprehensive introductions by John, which would in turn trace FJOB’s life and works, from his early years in Co. Cork to his wounding and eventual death from that wound during the American Civil War.

For the jacket art I approached Brian Coldrick, with whom we have worked before (see our “Strange Stories by  Irish Women” series, among others). Brian came up with a design that would unify the set, often drawing on the 1881 edition for inspiration and to pay homage to O’Brien’s publishing past. For example, the typeface for FJOB’s name on the covers for our edition is lifted from the full-title page of Poems and Stories. More significantly, on the rear of our covers (as well as on our full-title page) appears a delicate cluster of shamrocks: this illustration originally appeared opposite William Winter’s “Preface”.

So too did we lift a number of images from the 1881 edition: we used the only-known portraits of O’Brien on the rear flaps of the jackets (and for a postcard). The signature card that issues with our set comes from a facsimile letter Winter chose to preserve. Further postcards come from other sources associated with other significant FJOB publications: an illustration of “The Diamond Lens” by Ferdinand Huszti Howarth comes from a beautiful 1932 edition; while illustrations for “From Hand to Mouth” by Sol Eytinge Jr. and “What Was It?” by A. Burnham Shute come from 1868 and 1896 publications, respectively.

As you can see, we’ve worked hard to provide readers with that “something more” they’ve come to expect from Swan River Press. To my knowledge, this limited, hardback, three-volume set of the collected speculative fiction of Fitz-James O’Brien is not only the most complete collection of his work now available, but also the first Irish edition—appropriate that its official publication day is St. Patrick’s Day. And John P. Irish’s comprehensive introductions serve to guide the reader to a new understanding of Fitz-James O’Brien’s importance in the development of literature of the fantastic.

If you’d like to learn more about this project, here’s an interview with the editor, John P. Irish.

I hope you’ll consider picking up a copy! You can buy the Collected Speculative Works of Fitz-James O’Brien here.

Brian J. Showers
Æon House, Dublin
17 March 2025