‘Byzantium Endures’

Byzantium Endures

London:  Secker & Warburg, 1981 (June 29th) hardcover;
original price:  £6·95;
404 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  0-436-28458-8 (01-436-28458-8 on copyright page);
cover artist:  unknown (period photograph);
illustrated by “DJC” (map).

First volume in Michael Moorcock’s most ambitious and time-consuming project, his coming to terms with the Holocaust via epic and unreliable fictional memoirs of Maxim Arturovitch Pyatnitski (or Colonel Pyat). Byzantium Endures and its three sequels, The Laughter Of Carthage (1984), Jerusalem Commands (1992) and The Vengeance Of Rome (2006) — sometimes referred to as the “Between The Wars” tetralogy — comprise a mammoth and astonishing journey across the first half of the twentieth century, viewed through the eyes of a master charlatan and bigot, tracing the Holocaust’s origins in the past and showing how much of society (on all sides, wittingly or otherwise) conspired in its inevitability. The sequence has been described as an authentic masterpiece of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

N.B. It should be noted that the four books’ titles form (in combination) a single sentence: ‘Byzantium endures the laughter of Carthage; Jerusalem commands the vengeance of Rome’ (q.v.).

First edition, reprinted 1984 (£9·95).

First paperback edition: London: Fontana trade-sized paperback, 1982 (August 26th);
original price:  £2·95;
404 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  0-00-616512-5;
cover artist:  unknown.

Flamingo trade-sized paperback, 1985 (October 10th);
original price:  £3·95;
404 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  0-00-654138-0;
cover artist:  Chris Corr.

London: Jonathan Cape trade-sized paperback, 1992 (July 16th);
original price:  £9·99;
404 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  0-224-03542-8;
cover artist:  Andrew Hirniak.

(+ book club ed.)

London: Phoenix House trade-sized paperback, 1994 (April 14th);
original price:  £6·99;
404 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  0-85799-043-9;
cover artist:  Robin Cracknell.

London: Vintage trade-sized paperback, 2006 (January 5th);
original price:  £7·99;
404 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  0-099-48509-5;
cover artist/designer:  Stephen Parker.

First American edition:  New York: Random House hardcover, 1982 (January);
dated 1981 on copyright page;
sub-titled “A Novel”;
(purportedly) with unauthorised cuts and/or changes;
original price:  $14·50;
373 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  0-394-51972-8;
cover artist:  John Sposato (design).

First revised edition:  Oakland, CA: PM Press trade-paperback, 2012 (May);
sub-titled “The First Volume Of The Colonel Pyat Quartet”;
edited by Alan Kausch;
original price:  $22·00;
xxvi + 385 pages;
includes ‘Introduction To Byzantium Endures’ by Alan Wall (pp. xv–xxvi);
I.S.B.N.:  978-1-68486-491-5;
cover artist:  Linda Steele (photograph)/John Yates (design).

Revision not stated; should perhaps be more accurately considered as containing minor textual amendments.

(Followed by The Laughter Of Carthage)

(Click here for Foreign Editions)

Byzantium Endures is also available as e-books: 9781604867237 & 9781604867244.