Terry Pratchett was adamant that any works in progress of his would be destroyed (by a steamroller, no less) after his death. And when he passed away in 2015, his former assistant and friend Rob Wilkins did just that. So how could their be unknown works to his name?
It turns out that early on in Pratchett’s career, he had at least twenty stories published under a pseudonym.
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According to The Guardian, some intrepid fans unearthed the stories, which Pratchett wrote under the name Patrick Kearns. One of the stories, “The Quest for the Keys,” has been a prized possession for Pratchett appreciator, Chris Lawrence, for forty years. He let the Pratchett estate know he had it, and two other fans—Pat and Jan Harkin—dove through old newspapers to find the other nineteen.
The collection sold to Transworld, the publisher of Pratchett’s other works, and will be released in the U.K. on October 5, 2023 under the title, A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories. If you’re in the U.K., you can order it here. I couldn’t find any information on if/when it will be released in the U.S., but hopefully we’ll get an answer to that from the Pratchett estate sooner rather than later. (If you’re in the U.S., you can order at the link above, though you’ll have to pay an additional £25 to get the £20 book.)
The stories don’t take place in Pratchett’s Discworld but, according to the publisher, include “characters ranging from cavemen to gnomes, wizards to ghosts, and read about time-travel tourism, the haunting of council offices and a visitor from another planet.” Transworld managing director Larry Finlay told The Guardian, however, that readers of Pratchett’s later work may “spot nascent characters and settings that were to define his long career as one of the most exciting and inventive writers there has ever been.”
Wilkins also spoke to The Guardian and confirmed that fans of Pratchett’s work would enjoy his earlier stories. “They’re not just good, they’re better than good, and they’re very, very, very Terry,” he said.
You can pre-order A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories on the Discworld website.
