What do I care for first or last editions?
Some writers think that publication is the be-all and end-all. Others, like D. H. Lawrence, claim not to care about publication and having a readership:
"To me, no book has a date, no book has a binding. [...] One writes [...] to some mysterious presence in the air. If that presence were not there, and one thought of even a single solitary actual reader, the paper would remain forever white." [75-76]
Later, in the same introductory essay he adds:
"One submits to the process of publication as to a necessary evil: as souls are said to submit to the necessary evil of being born into the flesh." [78]
For Lawrence, what really counts is the creative process; a writer struggling with their own δαίμων in order to bring something into being that is beautiful - but passing - like a flower. The finished product, i.e., the published book, that people place upon their shelves and assemble into libraries, is, in a sense, just a husk.
And perhaps the greatest novels and poems are ones that remain unwritten; "voices in the air, that do not disturb the haze of autumn, and visions that don't blot out the sunflowers" [75].
Notes
D. H. Lawrence, 'The Bad Side of Books', Introductions and Reviews, ed. John Worthen, (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 73-78. Page numbers given in the text refer to this edition.
