(Part 3)
A local book auction in San Francisco in 1983
As related previously, in late 2008 the actual Knerr copy (the second-carbon) of the Fuzzies and Other People manuscript was located with the assistance of rare book dealer Lloyd W. Currey. This was itself extraordinary, but the real story was what accompanied this manuscript.
The manuscript was enclosed in a beat-up typewriter-paper box, exactly as Mike Knerr reported in 1982. Piper’s handwriting was/is on the box in several places. Inside of the box was the manuscript and a photocopy of a page from a from a book-auction catalogue from 1983. The auction-listing page detailed a number of Piper manuscripts as being for sale, including the Fuzzies and Other People manuscript discovered by Mike Knerr.
When asked if he could provide any additional information regarding this 1983 auction, Mr. Currey responded by stating that he had been present at the auction acting as an agent for several clients, and that he had purchased a number of the Piper manuscripts on behalf of those clients and himself. He also very kindly provided copies of several more pages from the same auction catalogue, showing all of the Piper material that had been offered for sale.
In early 2016, the manuscript for The Answer that was sold at the 1983 auction was identified, again with the assistance of Gerry Kleier, after the first edition of this monograph was published. The manuscript matched exactly the description in the auction catalog, and even included the specifically-worn copy of the December 1959 issue of Fantastic Universe referenced in the auction listing.
Based upon the information provided by Mr. Currey and Mr. Kleier, and after some further research, the details can be confirmed. A rare book auction was held on October 29, 1983 in San Francisco by California Book Auction Gallery (Sale #201). Included in the vast amount of general SF material offered were 11 original Piper manuscripts, Piper’s story-sales log and other Piper related items. The Fuzzies and Other People manuscript was listed as being discovered in 1982 and as being about-to-be-published later in 1983.
Given all of this, there can be little doubt as to the source of the material auctioned that day in October 1983. From the material presented, and the timing of the auction, it seems certain that Mike Knerr, despite his protestations to the contrary, actually possessed a trove of original Piper material, all taken from Piper’s apartment after the suicide.
Some Remaining Questions
One of the trunks taken by Mike Knerr from Piper’s apartment in 1964 is now purportedly in the possession of Knerr’s widow, but its current contents (as of 2025) remain a mystery. The trunk that was left in storage in Lock Haven apparently was sold in an estate sale in Lock Haven sometime in 2008, as at least one Piper item has surfaced from that sale (see below). Did Knerr sell off everything that he took from Piper’s apartment in 1964, or might there be more items still resting in the Trunks? Time may tell.
Additionally, it is very likely that Ken White, his next-to-last last agent, held some kind of file on his client, and that many of Piper’s manuscripts were sent out to publishers for consideration and never returned. The ultimate fate of any such pieces as described is unknown.
Perhaps the ultimate unanswered question is: Just what did Piper burn the night of his suicide? There is no hard evidence for any theory. From the 1983 auction listings, it seems certain that Piper kept at least a small manuscript library, including his sales log. If he did burn papers on the night of his death why weren’t these burned as well? It seems strange that he wouldn’t burn these items if he was indeed burning other manuscripts.
As previously mentioned, we do know that Piper and his friend and coauthor John J. McGuire did sometimes burn their unsold manuscripts and stories. The fact that the unsold third Fuzzy novel was saved might suggest that he not only kept sold pieces but, sometimes, unsold ones as well. It is known that the McGuire family holds some unpublished manuscripts by the two.
John F. Carr believes that what was destroyed in the fire may have largely been Piper’s correspondence with his ex-wife, Betty Hirst. Certainly no such correspondence was reported to have been found amongst Piper’s papers after his death and, given Piper’s Victorian reticence, these would seem a likely candidate for destruction when all was deemed lost.
Conclusion
In the confusion after Piper’s death it appeared that some, if not many, of his papers were destroyed by Piper in a last act of desperation. A small handful of his manuscripts surfaced during the decades that followed, apparently consisting of those documents not in Piper’s possession at the time of his death. Then in 1983, a significant collection of Piper documents mysteriously appeared and was auctioned off with little fanfare. The existence and details of this auction were not widely known at the time and eventually general knowledge of what occurred faded away. In the 1990s and 2000s a few more surviving manuscripts were identified, leading to the rediscovery of the 1983 auction details and the reassessment of the events surrounding the disappearance of Piper’s manuscript archive at the time of his death.
Mike Knerr always claimed that he had turned over all literary material of merit to Charles Piper for the estate’s use. However, it is absolutely certain that Knerr took much more material from Piper’s apartment than he admitted to taking, and that he misled everyone as to his intentions regarding the disposition of said material. Even years after the 1983 auction he maintained that he would not part with the material, and led people to believe that it all remained in the trunks he acknowledged taking from Piper’s home.
By curious coincidence, at the same time the Knerr-copy of the manuscript for Fuzzies and other People was located, the author of this article came across Piper’s personal copy of The Kentucky Rifle by Capt. John G.W. Dillin. The book was located in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, obtained through an estate in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania (the purported location of the second of the two trunks Knerr took from Piper’s apartment). Piper’s handwritten notations appear throughout the book, as do some written by Mike Knerr (these are initialed as “MEK” and are in a different hand than Piper’s). Knerr was a gun enthusiast like Piper. As this book was one of Piper’s most prized possessions it seems doubtful that he would have allowed anyone to make written notations in it besides himself. The presence of notations by Knerr, some of which seem to be comments on notations made by Piper, would seem to indicate that Knerr’s notations were made after Piper’s death, which further implies that Knerr took the book from Piper’s apartment along with the trunks of manuscript material and that it was later disposed of along with the manuscripts.
Whatever may ultimately prove to be the truth, it is clear that between the actions of Mike Knerr, the efforts of Charles Piper, and the 1983 auction source(s) that a number of Piper’s original papers appear to have been preserved beyond his death. Combining all of the above information with information gleaned from intensive searching in library databases, it is possible to document nearly all of the known Piper manuscripts held. A full accounting of these manuscripts, and the details involved, can be found in Appendix III below, and the Notes following thereto.
Appendix I
H. BEAM PIPER – KNOWN WORKS
[Note: Only individual stories/pieces are represented in the bibliographic listing below. The separately-published parts of the Lord Kalvan stories, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (book) itself, Uller Uprising and Ullr Uprising, and The Return and The Return (long version) are accounted for as separate entities as there are sufficient textual variations unique to each that make them separate works. For books only first appearances are listed (with one special collection/reprint – see 1.14). For stories/articles only the first magazine (or other) appearance is listed. All items listed in Appendix I are in the personal collection of the author of this article.]
Books:
(1.1) “A CATALOGUE OF EARLY PENNSYLVANIA AND OTHER FIREARMS AND EDGED WEAPONS AT ARESTLESS OAKS”, MCELHATTAN, PA. (The Times Tribune Co., Altoona 1927) - “Collected by Henry W. Shoemaker, Lieut. Col., Res., U.S.A., Compiled by H. Beam Piper, of Altoona, PA.” - first published work by Piper – Wraps
(1.2) THE PETRIFIED PLANET (Twayne 1952) - "A Twayne Science Fiction Triplet" - stories by Pratt, Piper, Merril - 1st Publication of Piper’s “Ullr Uprising” – HB/DW
(1.3) MURDER IN THE GUNROOM - (Knopf New York 1953) –HB/DW
(1.4 ) CRISIS IN 2140 (Ace D-227, 1957) – see "Null - ABC" - Wraps
(1.5) A PLANET FOR TEXANS (Ace D-299, 1958) – see "Lone Star Planet" - Wraps
(1.6) THE SCIENCE-FICTIONAL SHERLOCK HOLMES (The Council of Four, Denver 1960) - Contains an alternate/longer version of "The Return" (Astounding 1/54) by Piper and John J. McGuire, this being the only publication of this version - only 984 copies printed, in three binding variants:
(a) True First State - grey boards w/ white DW; 500 copies
(b) First State, Second Issue - brown boards w/ 1st State white DW; 100 copies.
(c) Second Edition - orange printed boards with orange/yellow DW; 384 copies.
(1.7) FOUR DAY PLANET (G.P. Putnam 1961) - HB/DW
(1.8) LITTLE FUZZY (Avon 1962) - Wraps
(1.9) JUNKYARD PLANET (G.P. Putnam 1963) – HB/DW
(1.10) THE COSMIC COMPUTER (Ace 1963) – Wraps - see Junkyard Planet
(1.11) SPACE VIKING (Ace 1963) - Wraps
(1.12) THE OTHER HUMAN RACE (Avon 1964) - - Wraps - later reissued/titled as Fuzzy Sapiens by Ace Books in 1976
(1.13) LORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHEN (Ace 1965) - Wraps
(1.14) FOUR DAY PLANET/LONE STAR PLANET (Ace April, 1979) - 1st re-print for both books – Wraps
(1.15) FEDERATION (Ace Feb. 1981) - contains never published story, "When in the Course" – Wraps
(1.16) EMPIRE (Ace May, 1981) - Wraps
(1.17) PARATIME (Ace Aug., 1981) - Wraps
(1.18) FIRST CYCLE (Ace Jan., 1982) - Wraps
(1.19) THE WORLDS OF H. BEAM PIPER (Ace Feb., 1983) - Wraps
(1.20) ULLER UPRISING (Ace June, 1983) – variant version of “Ullr Uprising” (see The Petrified Planet) -Wraps
(1,21) FUZZIES AND OTHER PEOPLE (Ace Aug. 1984) - Lost Novel - 1st publication – HB/DW
MAGAZINES, PULPS, FANZINES and NEWSPRINT:
(2.1) “Timely Topics” - THE SHOPPERS’ GUIDE (Williamsport, PA 1929/30) – article by H. Beam Piper for Ferd Coleman’s advertising paper – details an appearance by Capt. John Dillin at Fort Perry, Ohio in the summer of 1929 at the national shooting competition, and the history of the Kentucky Rifle – Piper mentions the article in a letter to Coleman in 1929/30 – see Appendix II below
(2.2) TIME AND TIME AGAIN - ASTOUNDING 4/47
(2.3) HE WALKED AROUND THE HORSES - ASTOUNDING 4/48
(2.4) POLICE OPERATION - ASTOUNDING 7/48
(2.5) PRECOGNITION AND A THEORY OF TIME - THE SPECTATOR CLUB / Fourth Mailing [Amateur Spectator Volume 1, #4] (September 1948) - contains part one of Piper’s article, “Precognition and a Theory of Time.”
(2.6) PRECOGNITION AND A THEORY OF TIME - THE SPECTATOR CLUB / Fifth Mailing [Amateur Spectator Volume 1, #5] (November 1948) - contains part two of Piper’s article, “Precognition and a Theory of Time.”
(2.7) THE MERCENARIES - ASTOUNDING 3/50
(2.8) LAST ENEMY - ASTOUNDING 8/50
(2.9) FLIGHT FROM TOMORROW - FUTURE SF Sept/Oct 1950
(2.10) REBEL RAIDER - TRUE: THE MAN’S MAGAZINE (December 1950) - Non-fiction piece on John Singleton Mosby, Confederate soldier
(2.11) OPERATION RSVP - AMAZING 1/51
(2.12) DEAREST - WEIRD TALES 3/51
(2.13) TEMPLE TROUBLE - ASTOUNDING 4/51
(2.14) DAY OF THE MORON - ASTOUNDING 9/51
(2.15) GENESIS - FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION 9/51
(2.16) NULL - ABC - ASTOUNDING 2 & 3/53 - See Crisis in 2140
(2.17) ULLR UPRISING - SPACE SCIENCE FICTION 2/53 – Part 1 - Alternate/Short version of novel - See books The Petrified Planet and Uller Uprising
(2.18) ULLR UPRISING - SPACE SCIENCE FICTION 3/53 – Part 2- Alternate/Short version of novel - See books The Petrified Planet and Uller Uprising
(2.19) THE RETURN - ASTOUNDING 1/54 - See The Science Fictional Sherlock Holmes (Council of Four 1960) for an alternate/longer version of this story
(2.20) TIME CRIME - ASTOUNDING 2/55 – Part 1
(2.21) TIME CRIME - ASTOUNDING 3/55 – Part 2
(2.22) OMNILINGUAL - ASTOUNDING 2/57
(2.23) LONE STAR PLANET - FANTASTIC UNIVERSE 3/57 - See A Planet For Texans
(2.24) THE EDGE OF THE KNIFE - AMAZING 5/57
(2.25) THE KEEPER - VENTURE SCIENCE FICTION 7/57
(2.26) GRAVEYARD OF DREAMS - GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION 2/58 - Alternate/Short Version of Cosmic Computer/ Junkyard Planet
(2.27) MINISTRY OF DISTURBANCE - ASTOUNDING 12/58
(2.28) HUNTER PATROL - AMAZING 5/59
(2.29) CROSSROADS OF DESTINY - FANTASTIC UNIVERSE 7/59
(2.30) THE ANSWER - FANTASTIC UNIVERSE 12/59
(2.31) OOMPHEL IN THE SKY- ANALOG 11/60
(2.32) NAUDSONCE - ANALOG 1/62
(2.33) A SLAVE IS A SLAVE - ANALOG 4/62
(2.34) SPACE VIKING - ANALOG 11/62 – Part 1
(2.35) SPACE VIKING - ANALOG 12/62 – Part 2
(2.36) SPACE VIKING - ANALOG 01/63 – Part 3
(2.37) SPACE VIKING - ANALOG 02/63 – Part 4
(2.38) DOUBLE:BILL #8 (January 1964) - Fanzine by Bowers and Mallardi - Piper is one of a number of SF pioneers who answered a series of questions by Lloyd Biggle, Jr., about their writing.
(2.39) “FUTURE HISTORY No. 1 - H. BEAM PIPER” - ZENITH #4 (April/May 1964) - British fanzine - article by Piper on his Future History
(2.40) GUNPOWDER GOD - ANALOG 11/64
(2.41) DOWN STYPHON - ANALOG 11/65
SOME PIPER RELATED MATERIAL OF NOTE:
(3.1) THE SPECTATOR CLUB / Third Mailing [Amateur Spectator Volume 1, #3] (July 1948) - several letters from Piper regarding his acceptance into the club. Amateur Spectator was a pro-zine open to professional and semi-professional writers. Initially made up of writers from New York City and New Jersey, it lasted about 2 years. Publication hovered between 25 and 50 members (or copies). This group formed the nucleus of what shortly thereafter became the legendary Hydra Club (circa 1949).
(3.2) “Typewriter Killer” - THE PENNSY (September 1953) - Article on Piper in the Pennsylvania Railroad’s monthly employee magazine, with pictures of Piper.
(3.3) CONVENTION ANNUAL NO.1 - PITTCON EDITION 1960 (18th World Science Fiction Convention, Sept. 3, 4, 5, 1960 Pittsburgh, PA) - Editor/Photos by Jay Kay Klein - Two Sections: (1) Text, with some items on Piper, (2) Photos, some of Piper at the Convention (#’s 39, 44, 47, 90, 122, 168, 170, 185)
(3.4) CONVENTION ANNUAL NO.2 - CHICON EDITION 1962 (20th World Science Fiction Convention, Aug. 31-Sept. 3, 1960 Chicago, IL) - Editor/Photos by Jay Kay Klein - Two Sections: (1) Text, with some items on Piper, (2) Photos, some of Piper at the Convention (#’s 11, 65, 184, 262 - see also #176)
(3.5) ENGRAM - Vol.1, No.2 (Fall 1962) - Fanzine – photo of Piper, plus info on the H. Beam Piper program at “Philcon 1962 on November 3, 1962” (date may be unclear)
(3.6) CONVENTION ANNUAL NO.3 - DISCON EDITION 1963 (21ST World Science Fiction Convention, Aug.31-Sept.2, 1963 Wash.D.C.) - Editor/Photos by Jay Kay Klein - Contains text items on Piper and photos of Piper at Convention (#’s 22, 166, 180)
(3.7) VENTURA II (May 1965) - Fanzine published by Phillip A. Harrell - Contains an Appreciation of Piper by Jack L. Chalker, and one by Harrell - Contains an art portfolio, including a drawing by H. BEAM PIPER
(3.8) THE DOUBLE:BILL SYMPOSIUM (D:B Press, September 1969) - Edited by Bowers and Mallardi - Piper is one of 94 SF pioneers who answered a series of questions about their writing
(3.9) Fantastic Literature-The Douglas Menville Collection-Sale #201 (California Book Auction Galleries October 1983) – auction catalog for a 1983 auction of Piper manuscripts.
Appendix II
“Timely Topics”- One of Piper’s Earliest Known Works
[In 1929/1930, H. Beam Piper wrote a short piece for THE SHOPPERS’ GUIDE, a Williamsport (PA) advertising newspaper owned and operated by Piper’s close friend, Ferd Coleman. From correspondence between the two friends that survives (see Carr’s H. Beam Piper: A Biography), Piper may have written more than one piece for Coleman’s paper. However, so far as is known to the author of this article, only one such piece (transcribed below) has survived. It describes an appearance by Capt. John Dillin, author of The Kentucky Rifle, at the National Shooting Competition in the summer of 1929. Note: Dillin’s name is misspelled as “Dillon” throughout.
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TIMELY TOPICS
Carrying a flintlock rifle 164 years old, Captain John G.W. Dillon of
Media, Pa., arrived at Camp Perry, O., for the national rifle and
pistol matches. He announced that he would show the great throng of
marksmen assembled there how our ancestors shot deer and Indians.
Archie Isaacs, the only Indian at Perry, has refused to pose as a target
and there are no deer in the vicinity. However the captain will have
an opportunity to try out his ancient gun against the swiftly moving
targets of the running deer range.
Last November, Captain Dillon shot a deer with his old rifle in the
Canadian woods and today he produced a friend, Charlie White of
Aylmer, Ontario, as a witness. Captain Dillon is a connoisseur of old
rifles. He has handled over 700 of them which have been sent to him
by collectors from all parts of the country to be appraised and
authenticated.
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“The gun which I have brought with me,” said Captain Dillon today,
“is of the type known as the Kentucky rifle. It was made in 1765 and
has been in use most of the time since that date. It is one of the finest
specimens in the country, and is one of the few of these old models
whose history is well established. Letters and other papers
which have been preserved in Pennsylvania show that this very rifle
was used by an early settler of Berks county to defend himself
against a hostile Indian in 1770. The Indian was killed. The gun is in
as good condition today as it was when it left the gunsmith’s hands
164 years ago.
“The old Kentucky rifles,” continued Captain Dillon, “in spite of
their name were manufactured in Pennsylvania. The best of them
were turned out by gun makers of Lancaster County where one may
still see the ruins of several old gun factories. So many of them were
sold to the early settlers of Kentucky that they came to be known as
Kentucky rifles. They are not smooth bores but are actually rifled.
This work was beautifully done with the crudest kind of machinery
and tools.”
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As soon as Captain Dillon reached Camp Perry, he started to cast
bullets for his old gun. The weapon is a muzzle-loader and the
charge is black powder poured into the barrel from a powder horn.
The bullet is wrapped in a patch of cloth before it is rammed home
and this patch takes up the rifling giving it the whirling motion
which increased its accuracy as in the modern rifle.
Captain Dillon himself traces his ancestry back to the time when the
old Kentucky rifles were manufactured and to the section of the
country where they were turned out. He comes from an old
Pennsylvania family. Both of his great-grandfathers fought under
Washington.
Captain Dillon is the author of “The Kentucky Rifle.”
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