‘The Vengeance Of Rome’

The Vengeance Of Rome

London:  Jonathan Cape, 2006 (January 5th) hardcover;
original price:  £17·99;
618 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  0-224-03119-8;
cover artist/designer:  Stephen Parker.

Fourth and final 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 (1981) and its three sequels, The Laughter Of Carthage (1984), Jerusalem Commands (1992) and The Vengeance Of Rome — 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.).

(Preceded by Jerusalem Commands)

First edition

London: Vintage trade-sized paperback, 2007 (January);
original price:  £7·99;
618 pages;
I.S.B.N.:  978-0-099-48882-8.

Initial printings of this edition had a misprinted title page, with “Vegeance” instead of ‘Vengeance’; a few are believed to have been made commercially available.

First American & first revised edition:  Oakland, CA: PM Press trade-paperback, 2013 (August);
sub-titled “The Fourth Volume Of The Colonel Pyat Quartet”;
edited by Alan Kausch;
original price:  $24·00;
xx + 584 pages;
includes ‘Introduction To The Vengeance Of Rome’ by Alan Wall (pp. xi–xix);
I.S.B.N.:  978-1-60486-494-6;
cover artist:  Linda Steele (photograph)/John Yates (design).

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

The Vengeance Of Rome is also available as an e-book: 9781604869149.