[Research] The Angel Esmeralda

08 Fall

An Examination of the First Edition of Don

DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda

Alexandra Haehnert, December 2014

Portland State University Editorial Theory Dr. Per Henningsgaard Fall 2014

Haehnert: DeLillo’s The Angel Esmeralda

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Introduction

In 2011, Scribner published The Angel Esmeralda, Don DeLillo’s first short story collection.1 The

choice of publisher is hardly surprising, given that DeLillo’s major works (Underworld through

Point Omega) have appeared with Scribner since 1997. This essay will explore the collection’s

textual history and the editorial principles underlying its development before proposing a

critical edition of DeLillo’s short stories.

This is going to be the first study of the editorial history of DeLillo’s short stories as

represented in The Angel Esmeralda. Indeed, scholarship on DeLillo’s short pieces (I refer here

to both fiction and nonfiction) is scant in general—most critics concern themselves with his

novels, especially those written between 1982 and 1997. As far as textual scholarship goes, a

few critics have remarked on the relation between “The Angel Esmeralda” and Underworld (e.g.,

May, McCormick, Sarmento); apart from this, no explorations of the stories’ development

appear to exist.

The Arrangement of The Angel Esmeralda

The Angel Esmeralda contains nine of DeLillo’s short stories published between 1979 and 2011.

All nine stories had previously been published in a variety of magazines, and some of them had

appeared in other anthologies before.2 The collection presents the stories in chronological

order by their original publication date, arranged in three parts: Part One is made up of

“Creation” and “Human Moments in World War III”; Part Two contains “The Runner,” “The

1 Picador published the UK version, with which this paper will not concern itself, in the following year. 2 I will discuss the details of the stories’ specific publication history when I deal with single stories specifically later in the paper.


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Ivory Acrobat,” and “The Angel Esmeralda”; and Part Three includes “Baader-Meinhof,”

“Midnight in Dostoevsky,” “Hammer and Sickle,” and “The Starveling.”

The Angel Esmeralda is not a comprehensive collection of DeLillo’s short stories. Before

1979, he had published at least eight other short stories. The collection also omits the stories

“The Sightings” (1979), “Pafko at the Wall” (1992), “Videotape” (1994), “The Black and White

Ball” (1996), “Sputnik” (1997), and “In the Men's Room of the Sixteenth Century” (2002)—if not

more—which fall well within the timeframe covered by the Scribner collection.3

The Angel Esmeralda: A Collaborative Effort

DeLillo worked with his long-time editor Nan Graham on preparing The Angel Esmeralda for

publication. Graham has been DeLillo’s editor since Mao II (Passaro 80), his 1991 novel that

was first published by Viking, now an imprint of Penguin Random House.4 Graham left Viking

around 1995 (Konigsberg 31) to become editor-in-chief at Scribner, an imprint of Simon &

Schuster. In 2012, she became senior vice president and publisher of Scribner (Scribner). After

Mao II, all of DeLillo’s novels have been published, as previously indicated, by Scribner—both

editor and author transitioned from one publisher to another within the same time frame.

While I cannot make a conclusive statement on this parallel development, it is presumably not

coincidental; indeed, it might hint at the quality of Graham and DeLillo’s professional

relationship.5

3 This paragraph comes with a number of qualifiers because DeLillo has been known to publish under pseudonyms. 4 Before her, DeLillo’s editor at Viking was Gerald Howard (Alter). 5 It might also hint at Scribner’s superior negotiating powers; according to Eric Konigsberg, DeLillo was “wooed away from [Viking] with a reported $1.7 million advance, although his last novel, Mao II, sold only in the range of 40,000 copies” (28).


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When asked by Larry Dark what made him decide to publish the first short story collection

of his career, DeLillo responds without hesitation: “My editor” (21:17).6 In a speech on the

occasion of Nan Graham winning the 2011 Maxwell E. Perkins Award, DeLillo further clarifies

her role in the publication of The Angel Esmeralda: “Nan said, ‘Now.’ One of us laughed

nervously. I think it was me. She named the publication date, discussed the stories that could

be included, determined the order of the stories, worked out a three-part structure and an

illustration for each part” (10:27–10:38).7 The choice of what stories to include in the collection

appears to have been a team effort, according to the author: “Together we chose nine stories—

there are many earlier stories, maybe for a future volume—these were the nine we thought

would work best in a collection” (I-Dark 21:52–22:04); “At this particular juncture, I became

the editor and decided the book would be better without [other stories he and Graham had

considered including]” (ibid. 23:21–23:26).

It becomes clear very soon that The Angel Esmeralda did not spring from DeLillo’s mind

alone; Graham had a big part in its conception and development, and the author explicitly

acknowledges her contributions. This example validates textual scholar Jerome McGann’s

“argument for a socialized concept of authorship and textual authority” (8), which runs counter

to traditional Romantic conceptions of isolated authorship: “The production of books …

sometimes involves a close working relationship between the author and various editorial and

publishing professionals” (34).

6 My transcription. From here on out, parenthetical references will identify interviews with DeLillo by “I-,” followed by the name of the interviewer. Similarly, parenthetical references to The Angel Esmeralda will be identified by “AE.” 7 My transcription. I will come back to the illustrations later on in this paper.


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Revisions in The Angel Esmeralda

As concerns actually editing the stories for publication, DeLillo appears to have wielded a great

amount of control. He says that he was surprised how little he needed to revise, particularly

with the earlier stories included in Part One of the collection (I-Dark 22:22). “What I changed

were all the magazine editors’ additions of semicolons, colons, commas, serial commas. Took

’em all out” (ibid. 22:26–38).

This statement is significant for this paper for two reasons.8 One, it suggests that much of

the punctuation included in the magazine versions of the stories was absent from the

manuscripts, and two, that for the preparation of The Angel Esmeralda, DeLillo and Graham

referred to the magazine versions as their base texts. Considering the displeasure at the

magazine editors’ emendations DeLillo expresses above, this seems a rather odd choice.

Making the leap to classic editorial theory, then, one could say that DeLillo and Graham

followed—and the reasons for this are unclear to me—Phillip Gaskell’s logic of choosing the

first edition as a base text,9 although it seems that they would have been better served by

choosing the manuscript instead, as recommended by W. W. Greg and elaborated by Fredson

Bowers.

Having said this, examining the stories’ magazine and Scribner forms side by side confirms

DeLillo’s statement. The majority of the kinds of revision I documented are consistent comma

8 I want to mention here that all extrapolations I make from statements by DeLillo are to be taken with a modicum of skepticism. Both literary and textual scholars are well aware of the slippery slope that is taking the author at his or her word. For the purposes of this paper, I will trust that DeLillo made those statements in good faith, simply because they are the only window into the stories’ history—apart from the stories themselves—that I have access to at this moment. All my arguments here should, in due time, be tested by actually consulting the manuscripts and page proofs that are on file at the University of Texas at Austin. 9 Gaskell posits that authors expect their spelling and punctuation to be normalized by their editors and generally endorse their emendations; he therefore recommends taking the first edition as copy-text rather than the manuscript (339–40).


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deletions. For the people working on the Scribner edition, the author’s wishes concerning

punctuation reigned supreme—and it is clear from scrutinizing the edition that if DeLillo’s

omission of serial commas, for example, did not at the outset conform to an established house

style, DeLillo was given exemption from it. In fact, when asked how much control his publisher

sought to exert upon the edition, DeLillo says that “[he] was a free man” (I-Dark 22:50).

I should note that the amount of comma revisions varies from story to story, however,

according to the stories’ first publication venues. For example, the editors at Granta—a British

literary magazine in which both the early “The Ivory Acrobat” (1988) and the recent “The

Starveling” (2011) originally appeared—inserted much fewer commas in the first place

(presumably due to British convention), which means that the Granta and the Scribner versions

do not differ significantly in their comma usage. On the other hand, “Hammer and Sickle” as

published in Harper’s in 2010 has ten more commas than the Scribner version.

My initial hypothesis in investigating the variations between the stories’ first appearances

and their republication in the Scribner collection was that progressing with DeLillo’s growing

recognition as a preeminent contemporary American author—the growth of his brand and

platform—the frequency of variations between the two versions would decrease. I assumed

that, looking back at the first printings of the earlier stories, I would find that the magazine

editors had normalized much of DeLillo’s idiosyncratically sparse punctuation. Conversely, I

expected the versions of the more recent stories not to differ significantly, as magazine editors

treated DeLillo’s writing more as a brand with recognizable properties. This expected pattern, I

can say now, did not manifest itself—the 2010 Harper’s editor of “Hammer and Sickle” was a

much more assiduous user of commas than the 1979 Antaeus editor of “Creation,” for example.


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This is probably due to the sheer multiplicity of first publishing venues; the magazine versions

were not produced with according to one unified editorial approach.

Other kinds of “accidentals” (spelling, hyphenation, capitalization) in the magazine

versions are treated consistently in the Scribner edition10: British spellings were made to

conform to American English standards; many nouns and adjectives hyphenated in the

magazine versions were either closed or opened up; and specific word classes received

consistent typographical treatment according, presumably, to Scribner’s house style and/or a

style sheet.

Another expectation I had when going into this research project was that the majority of the

“substantive” changes I would find would concern the older stories in the collection. I assumed

that DeLillo’s current literary tastes and judgments would differ more significantly to those

represented by a story written in the late 1970s than one written just a few years ago. I assumed

that DeLillo, going over the stories in 2011, would find more fault with those farther removed

in time. Again, this turned out not to be the case. For example, the first story in The Angel

Esmeralda, “Creation,” differs from the previous 1979 publication in Antaeus in only one

substantive: where the Antaeus version says, “and the near consciousness we always seem to

find, even resisting the force of our earliest summers, in zones of overgrown terrain” (43), the

Scribner version gives the contracted “and the near consciousness we always seem to find in

zones of overgrown terrain” (19).

10 I have determined that the denotative quality of Greg’s terms “accidentals” and “substantives” is sufficient for the purposes of this paper.


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By contrast, “Hammer and Sickle,” a story that appeared in Harper’s only about one year

before the publication of The Angel Esmeralda, saw a large amount of substantive revisions.11

DeLillo inserted a sentence that does not exist in the Harper’s version: “At least their mother

had assigned the vulgar line to the older girl” ends the particular story section in Harper’s (69).

In the Scriber edition, however, the section ends on “Was the daily market report becoming a

performance piece?” (164). In a 1993 interview, DeLillo said, “I used to look for things to keep.

… Now I look for ways to discard things” (I-Begley). In light of this statement in particular, the

addition of this sentence is especially compelling. It goes directly to the heart of the story and

spells out explicitly for the reader the narrator’s thought process, which is more obscure in the

Harper’s version. One might surmise, then, that DeLillo felt that the trajectory of “Hammer and

Sickle” needed clarification upon rereading it while preparing The Angel Esmeralda.

DeLillo also rewrote one sentence completely: “The men yelled and clamored, releasing

themselves, these flabby white-collar felons, giving themselves up to some powerful impulse”

in Harper’s (73) becomes “The men yelled and clamored, these flabby white-collar felons,

seeming to reject everything they’d believed all their lives” in the Scribner edition (175), which,

again—at least in the opinion of this reader—is more explicitly in tune with the thrust of the

story as a whole. The narrator, moreover, is one year older in the Scribner edition, which has a

kind of amusing logic to it, given that the story itself aged one year between its original

publication and its publication in the collection.

The most perplexing editorial development arguably belongs to “Human Moments in World

War III.” Originally published in Esquire magazine in 1983, the story later appeared in a 1996

collection of American Gothic Tales edited by Joyce Carol Oates. Bookended by Harlan Ellison

11 For a complete list of substantive changes, consult page v of the Appendix.


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and John L’Hereux, this version of the story mostly replicates the original Esquire version, and

both the Oates and the Esquire versions differ from the Scribner version mostly in the matter of

accidentals. However, in the Oates version, a sizable chunk of text has been added to the first

half of the story (Table 1).12

Esquire (1983), p. 122 Oates (1996), p. 333 AE (2011), p. 36 We count down from five.

The enhanced voice says, You are locked in now.

As we move from one

step to the next a growing satisfaction passes through me—the pleasure of elite and secret skills, a life in which every breath is governed by specific rules, by patterns, codes, controls.

We count down from five. The enhanced voice says, You are locked in now.

“Random factor seven,” I say. “Problem seven. Solution seven.” Vollmer says, “Give me an acronym.”

“BROWN, for Bearing Radius Oh White Nine.”

My color-spec lights up brown. The numbers on my display screen read 2, 18, 15, 23, 14. These are the alphanumeric values of the letters in the acronym BROWN as they appear in unit succession.

The logic-gate opens. The enhanced voice says, You are logical now.

As we move from one step to the next, as the colors, numbers, characters, lights and auditory signals indicate that we are proceeding correctly, a growing satisfaction passes through me—the pleasure of elite and secret skills, a life in which every breath is governed by specific rules, by patterns, codes, controls.

We count down from five. The enhanced voice says, You are locked in now.

As we move from one

step to the next a growing satisfaction passes through me—the pleasure of elite and secret skills, a life in which every breath is governed by specific rules, by patterns, codes, controls.

Table 1. Variations in “Human Moments in World War III.”

12 In this section, I intentionally use a sans-serif font to make it easier for the reader to locate variants.


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Apart from this major difference, the Oates version also includes the phrase “well back in

the mouth” (327) in a sentence that in both other versions just says, “It is too direct, a deep

voice from high in the mouth, [well back in the mouth,] slightly insistent, a little loud” (Esquire

120, AE 28). Conversely, the Oates version omits an entire sentence included in both other

versions:

Coming from that mild face, in that earnest resonant run-un voice, these ideas unnerve and worry me as they never do when they remain unspoken. I want words

to be secretive, to cling to a darkness in the deepest interior. [omitted in Oates] Vollmer’s candor exposes something painful. (Oates 328, Esquire 120, AE 30)

It also exchanges what in both other versions is given as “cassettes” for “videocassettes” (329).

Among the Don DeLillo Collection at the University of Texas at Austin are typescript drafts

and proofs of the story dating from between 1983 and 1986, which confirms that DeLillo

continued working on it until at least three years after the Esquire publication (Harry Ransom

Center). It is noteworthy that DeLillo and Graham chose not to use—or merely overlooked—the

later version, the Oates version, as their base text for The Angel Esmeralda.

A Critical Edition of Don DeLillo’s Short Fiction

Examining The Angel Esmeralda, a trade publication, has shown that—even though DeLillo is

still alive and producing work—a critical edition of his short fiction is warranted. The variations

between the early magazine versions of the stories and their publication by Scribner are

numerous and significant enough to warrant further scrutiny. Given DeLillo’s status in the

academy—at least since the publication of Underworld, his place in the canon of contemporary

American literature has been solidifying—scholars would surely be interested in such an

edition, and procuring funding for the undertaking should therefore not be an insurmountable


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obstacle. In the following, I outline a number of principles according to which a critical edition

of DeLillo’s short stories could be produced.

Choose an appropriate book format

The edition I propose would predominantly serve readers with a high interest in and

commitment to the material, but it should easily satisfy the needs of a more casual readership

as well. For this reason, I propose producing a clear reading text (according to the principles

outlined below) that gives ample room for annotations that are easily accessible to the reader.

This accessibility can be facilitated by specific physical characteristics of the book. A square

format, or, even better, one where the width of the page is greater than its height, would

accommodate the clear reading text and the annotations to appear side by side. Jeffrey S.

Cramer’s edition of Walden approximates the arrangement (Fig. 1) I am envisioning.

Fig. 1. Spread view of pages 2–3 of Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition, ed. Jeffrey S. Cramer, New Haven: Yale UP, 2004.


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Include all stories

In order for the reader to get a thorough understanding of DeLillo’s development as a short

story writer, the critical edition should be as comprehensive as possible and include all known

short stories DeLillo has ever published. Unlike a trade publication, a critical edition need not

be concerned with presenting the stories according to some overarching theme; ordering them

by original publication date seems perfectly adequate to me, as long as completion is ensured.

Adhere to DeLillo’s preferred accidentals, but note prominently variations in

substantives.

Many manuscripts, drafts, research notes, and correspondence concerning the stories published

between 1975 and 2009 are freely available at the University of Texas at Austin (Harry Ransom

Center). The editor of the critical edition I am proposing should get thoroughly acquainted with

all of them and try to collect similar material for the stories published outside this time frame.

My proposed critical edition would embrace the documentary spirit of the German-inflected

Continental school of editorial theory (proponents include Hans Walter Gabler and Hans Zeller)

but still present a clear reading text with prominently placed notations on substantive variants

(which a book with of appropriate dimensions, as outlined above, could accommodate).

As my examination of the editorial history of “Human Moments in World War III” has

shown, the temporal development of the stories does not allow for an easy decision as to what

constitutes DeLillo’s “final” version. This circumstance gains further significance by DeLillo

being still alive; his work is, simply, not finished. The edition would have to pay attention to

this fact explicitly.


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Accidentals

That said, I would recommend the clear reading text to adhere to the stories’ manuscript forms

as far as punctuation is concerned (in the case of stories published in The Angel Esmeralda,

where it is clear that DeLillo wielded significant editorial influence and presumably restored

punctuation to a state approximating his manuscripts, taking The Angel Esmeralda as a base

text would be equally sensible). Sparse punctuation is typical for DeLillo’s writing style, and it

would be a gross violation to normalize it according to an external style sheet.

Consider, for example, this random sentence from Underworld (also edited by Nan Graham):

“Then someone appeared and began to put things on a table, to move the magazines and

picture books and put out bowls and crocks and cut flowers and then to reinstate some of the

picture books but only the ones that claimed a status of a certain sumptuous kind” (469). One

can easily make out three points where an officious editor would consider inserting commas to

make this run-on sentence more digestible—dulling in the process the effect of its avalanche of

ands and sacrificing for (presumably) easier readability its urgent quality, which is a hallmark of

DeLillo’s prose. This example my argument that the hypothetical critical edition of the short

stories adhere to the manuscripts as far as punctuation is concerned—in line with W. W. Greg’s

recommendations to consult the manuscript in the matter of accidentals (22). Variations in

punctuation should only be documented in the edition (and this goes against the German

school’s approach) if they have a significant impact on the respective sentence’s meaning.

Serial commas often do not fall into this category; nor do variations in hyphenation.


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Substantives

Again, I would recommend going with Greg’s recommendation of referring to a published

edition in deciding which substantives to include in the reading text. This decision is a rather

arbitrary one and simply grounded on matters of recency. Thus, I would refer to The Angel

Esmeralda for substantives in the stories included in this collection, and to the magazine

versions of the stories that would complete the critical edition. As for substantive variations—

and this is important—they should be prominently noted in the margins of the text so as to

attenuate, to a certain extent, the implied primacy of the substantives included in the reading

text. For the same reason, editors might consider giving a distinctive typographical treatment

to those words that underwent substantive changes in other editions, such as I have done in my

documentation of variants in the Oates version of “Human Moments in World War III” above.

Here is Don DeLillo reflecting on his writing process:

I construct sentences. There’s a rhythm I hear that drives me through a sentence. And the words typed on the white page have a sculptural quality. … They match up not just through meaning but through sound and look. … One syllable too many [for the rhythm of a sentence], I look for another word. There’s always another word that means nearly the same thing, and if it doesn’t then I’ll consider altering the

meaning of a sentence to keep the rhythm, the syllable beat. I’m completely willing

to let language press meaning upon me. (I-Begley, emphasis added; cf. also I-Franzen 14)

While I want to caution, in the spirit of Morse Peckham, against succumbing to “literary

hagiolatry” and letting DeLillo’s remarks intrude too heavily on our editorial decisions, this is

certainly of interest for the editor puzzling over DeLillo’s substantive alterations and his


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reasons for changing specific words. In some instances, DeLillo might, while revising his

writing, simply have preferred the sound of one word to another.13

His statement suggests, then, the tenuousness of “authorial intention” as a guiding post for

making editorial choices, at least as promulgated by Fredson Bowers and as “the intention that

the work ‘mean (and be taken to me) something or other’” (Tanselle 175). It supports me in my

view that adhering, fundamentally, to the documentary slant of German theory—and

articulating this approach explicitly—is a way for the editor to bypass this problem, as long as

she makes it very clear that the substantives represented in the clear reading text have been

chosen according to the most recent printed edition merely on the grounds of recency and for

reading ease.

I understand that my proposed edition would be striving to serve two masters: representing

a clear reading text while at the same time conscientiously and as transparently as possible

accounting for textual variants. I think attempting this is worthwhile. A successful execution

would, potentially, resolve to some extent the problems of text representation as presented by

the eclectic text and by the genetic/synoptic text (as proposed by Gabler in his edition of

Ulysses, for example).14 Great care would have to be given to smart book design, therefore, and

the editorial team should work closely together with book designers who have a keen

understanding of the editorial challenges presented by the edition I am proposing.15

13 This could very well explain many of the changes made to “Hammer and Sickle” that I have catalogued in the Appendix, for example. 14 The eclectic text obfuscates the text’s “fluidity” (Bryant) in favor of greater readability and, of course, in order to present the work as such, according to assumption about authorial intention. (This point is moot for my proposed edition, however, as discussed.) The genetic/synoptic text, conversely, sacrifices readability for a representation of the text’s fluidity, thereby making it accessible to a highly specialized readership only. 15 I limit myself here to conceiving of a print edition. The text representation in a digital environment presents a different set of challenges, although it is my belief that the problems with representing the text in the manner I propose would be more easily accomplished digitally. This is material for another paper, however.


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Include commentary on stories’ relation to novels

The scholarly edition I am proposing would dedicate generous room to commentary on the

stories’ relation to DeLillo’s novel. It would include, for example, a side-by-side presentation of

“The Angel Esmeralda” and the story’s reincarnation in Underworld (237–51, 810–24) as well as

extensive critical commentary on this particular textual relationship.16 The edition would,

similarly, point out the intimate relationship of “Baader-Meinhof” and DeLillo’s 2010 novel

Point Omega, and make other informed decisions about presenting the connections between

the short stories and DeLillo’s larger-scale work. Seeing that the majority of scholarly interest

is in DeLillo’s novels, this would not only be a scholarly conscientious decision but also one

that acknowledges the importance of audience and marketplace.

Include paratextual material

Scholars have variously reminded us of the importance of paratexts and the material

circumstances of publication (e.g., Bornstein, Young, McLaverty 105). John K. Young, for

example, discusses Thomas Pynchon, but I would argue that the following point holds true for

DeLillo as well (DeLillo’s stories clearly participate in the same marketplace of popular media):

“Only by studying these stories within their full textual history [only by giving an account of

their original sites of publication, popular magazines] can we understand Pynchon’s place

within popular media and his responses to the consumer culture through which he developed

his initial authorial image.” Young stresses the “crucial role [of] materialist criticism” (389) for

both textual and literary scholarship.

16 Cf. I-Franzen 21–23 for DeLillo talking about the process of transitioning “The Angel Esmeralda” to Underworld.


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The wealth of paratexts accompanying DeLillo’s short stories in their different original

venues of publications is astounding. This includes story-focused taglines, extraneous

advertisement, and images apparently illustrating for the reader the content of the respective

stories. Thus, the New Yorker version of “Baader-Meinhof,” for example, is accompanied by a

reproduction of Gerhard Richter’s painting Confrontation 1. Characters in the story are viewing

this particular painting. The Esquire version of “The Angel Esmeralda” is supplemented by the

tagline “How do you live when the Terror is local? A tale of the South Bronx in a time of

plagues and miracles.” It is also adorned by ornate callout boxes and a full-spread illustration

by Kinuko Craft, which more or less gives away the climax of the story (Fig. 2). This is work that

Fig. 2 “The Angel Esmeralda” in Esquire (1994)


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has been done specifically to accompany the short story in the magazine.17

The Angel Esmeralda itself also includes three pictures on the pages separating the volume’s

three parts. Those pictures were originally produced in a separate context altogether; Scribner

or Graham did not commission them specifically. Part One is preceded by a photo of Earth

taken from space (AE 1). While the obvious relationship is to “Human Moments in World War

III,” which takes place in space and makes direct reference to a character looking wistfully at

the planet (AE 43–44), the image also resonates curiously with the first story’s title, “Creation,”

and may be said to amplify its religious connotations. Part Two shows a presumably Minoan

fresco depicting bull-leaping (AE 45), which explicitly refers to the story “The Ivory Acrobat,”

and Part Three reproduces Gerhard Richter’s painting Dead, from the same cycle of paintings

that “Baader-Meinhof” refers to explicitly.

While it is not too challenging to recognize the most immediate relationships between the

images and the texts, as can be seen in my sketching them above, a more thorough exploration

of them—and the other paratexts—certainly promises to produce critical insights on DeLillo’s

work and contemporary literary culture more generally. Therefore, my proposed critical edition

would make ample room, if it turns out to be impossible to reproduce facsimiles of the stories

as they appeared in magazines, then at least to verbally identify and catalog the visual and

other paratextual elements.

17 The Granta version of “The Starveling” is preceded by a photograph of a New York City street (66); the Harper’s version of “Hammer and Sickle” includes a picture of a highway (63); the Esquire version of “Human Moments in World War III” includes a big illustration depicting several story elements (118–19); the Harper’s version of “The Runner” includes an abstract illustration by David Moyers (63). There are more examples of visuals prominently placed in the stories, but I think my point about their quasi-ubiquitousness has become clear.


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Conclusion

My examination of the first edition of Don DeLillo’s short story collection The Angel Esmeralda

sheds light on the fact that we do not have to deal with literary classics or dead authors to

uncover dynamic textual and social relationships. DeLillo, far from being an isolated writer-

figure, worked closely with his editor Nan Graham in preparing The Angel Esmeralda.

Comparing the stories included in the collection to the versions previously published in

magazines was a worthwhile exercise: it revealed a number of variations that are of interest not

only to the textual archaeologist but also to the literary critic. Whether my proposed new

edition of DeLillo’s short stories is the most viable is certainly arguable, but my paper has

shown that a properly critical edition of all his stories is in order, indeed.


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Works Cited

Primary Sources

DeLillo, Don. The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories. New York: Scribner, 2011.

Previous publication venues of short stories collected in The Angel Esmeralda

Each entry is followed by a notation in parentheses indicating the page range of the respective story as printed in the Scribner

edition of The Angel Esmeralda.

DeLillo, Don. “The Angel Esmeralda.” Esquire, May 1994, 100–09. (AE 73–102.)

–––. “Baader-Meinhof.” New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2002, 78–82. (AE 105–18.)

–––. “Creation.” Antaeus 33 (1979): 32–46. (AE 3–23.)

–––. “Hammer and Sickle.” Harper’s, Dec. 2010, 63–74 .(AE 147–81.)

–––. “Human Moments in World War III.” American Gothic Tales, ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New

York: Plume, 1996. 325–38. (AE 25–44.)

–––. “The Ivory Acrobat.” Granta 25 (1988): 200–12. (AE 55–72.)

–––. “Midnight in Dostoevsky.” New Yorker, 30 Nov. 2009, 68–77. (AE 119–45.)

–––. “The Runner.” Harper’s, Sept. 1988, 61–63. (AE 47–54.)

–––. “The Starveling.” Granta 117 (2011): 66–90. (AE 183–211.)

Novels

DeLillo, Don. Point Omega: A Novel. New York: Scribner, 2010.

–––. Underworld. New York: Scribner, 1997.


ii

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DeLillo, Don. Interview by Adam Begley. Paris Review 128 (1993). Rpt. in Paris Review, n.d. The

Paris Review Foundation. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1887/

the-art-of-fiction-no-135-don-delillo>.

–––. Interview by Jonathan Franzen. New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman

Building, 24 Oct. 2012. New York Public Library, n.d. New York Public Library. 8 Dec.

2014. <http://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/livedelillofranzen_10.24transcript_0.doc>.

–––. Interview by Larry Dark. Story Prize Awards 2012, The New School, New York, 21 March

2012. YouTube, 28 March 2012. Google. 8 Dec. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=5TjVFCkZ4tg>.

Speech

DeLillo, Don. Annual Benefit and Awards Dinner. The Center for Fiction, University Club, New

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<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRA8TYqiobU>.

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Textual Cultures 3.1 (2008): 65–76.


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Bowers, Fredson. “Some Principles for Scholarly Editions of Nineteenth-Century American

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iv

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v

Appendix

Substantive changes in “Hammer and Sickle”

Harper’s (2010) AE (2011) the scale of his crimes (64) the arc of his crimes (148) the thing with weight and shape? (64) the thing with weight and heft? (149) distanced from one another (64) distanced from each other (150) The Japanese man took on distinct features, a certain configuration, (64)

The Japanese man took on facial features, a certain size and shape, (152)

demands of others and mostly disentangled (65)

demands of others but mostly disentangled (153)

developing in the United Arab Emirates (65) developing in the Arab Emirates (153) The DAX in Germany. (65) The DAX index in Germany. (153) I’m thirty-eight years old, (65) I’m thirty-nine years old, (155) referees on the sidelines sharing a cigarette. (66)

linesmen sharing a cigarette. (158)

into the region (68) into the Gulf (161) But we needed this no less than we did the devices (68)

But we needed this no less than the devices (162)

At least their mother had assigned the vulgar line to the older girl. (69)

At least their mother had assigned the vulgar line to the older girl. Was the daily market report becoming a performance piece? (164)

wheedling half-assed infractions. (69) wheedling half-assed felonies. (165) conveying credit to the man (69) conveying simple credit to the man (165) news in high rumble (71) news in high clamor (171) Laurie says softly (72) Laurie said softly (174) Kate says briskly (72) Kate said briskly (174) a long way from the funny terminology (73) a long way from the funny place-names (175) The men yelled and clamored, releasing themselves, these flabby white-collar felons, giving themselves up to some powerful impulse. (73)

The men yelled and clamored, these flabby white-collar felons, seeming to reject everything they’d believed all their lives. (175)

a familiar look creep into her eyes (73) a familiar look slide into her eyes (176) People, a few at first, (73) People, a few at a time, (177)

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