As for constant revision, I've heard Tim O'Brien is known for revising his books between editions. I've never checked this, only having one edition of each of the books of his I've read.
Closer to home, Dan Marlowe extensively rewrote The Name of the Game is Death,not just the ending to turn it into a series.
Also, I posted this in 2000:
I'm about 20 pages into Donald Hamilton's Line of Fire. The copyright date is 1955. As usual with Gold Medal, there is no information about edition of the printing. However, I noticed something a bit odd. The getaway car in this 1955 book is described as a '62 Chevy convertible and the dame lost her husband in Viet Nam. I'm assuming this was originally Korea and another date car. Did Gold Medal make a practice of updating their books? I've never noticed this before.
Mark
> To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> From: jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com
> Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:41:59 +0000
> Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: are authors the best judge of their work?
>
>
>
> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, WALKER MARTIN <wamartin2@...> wrote:
>
> > -------------Often it's probably not a good idea to go back and change previous work, especially after several years. An example would be John D. Macdonald and his two collections reprinting some of his pulp stories, THE GOOD OLD STUFF and MORE GOOD OLD STUFF. These were stories written in the 1940's and I'd have preferred to read them as written and not updated or revised.
> > ------Walker Martin.
> >
>
> I am almost convinced that he also updated some of his novels. My take on this is since everything is impermanent, it is futile to look at the past, which doesn't exist anymore. A different person did something, this person right now is related to the other person but not the same. Let the stories stand. A story about constant revision could be written quite easily -- it probably _has_ been written.
>
> Best,
>
> mrt
>
>
>
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