Note: This novelette tells the story of 1912 novel The Night Land. "[T]he 200,000-word novel was condensed to a 20,000-word novelette, originally for the purpose of establishing copyright." --Wikipedia Copyright version The 2009 Night Shade collection The Dream of X [...] (viewed as "Look inside" at Amazon.com 2019-06-18) contains this work in its second part, "Copyright Versions". From the Introduction by Ross E. Lockhart (see), page xi: "... we move on to Hodgson's copyright versions, stripped-down abridgements of his best-known works, written to secure American copyright protections. Many of these have a "Cliffs Notes" feeling to them, particularly "The Ghost Pirates" and "Carnacki, the Ghost Finder". [This 2009 title story], however, distills Hodgson's epic novel The Night Land, down to its barest essentials, losing none of its power or poetry in the process. It is likely that these copyright versions were never intended by Hodgson to be seen by a reading audience ..." (emphasis added). This title story spans 40 pages in the 2009 collection.