Later this year, a collection of twenty previously unearthed short stories by the late fantasy author Sir Terry Pratchett will be released.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Sir Terry wrote under the pseudonym Patrick Kearns for a rural newspaper.
These were not previously credited to him, but following a search by “a few devoted followers” they have been compiled, Penguin claimed.
Sir Terry, the author of the best-selling Discworld series, passed away in 2015.
One of the larger pieces in the new collection, The Search for the Keys, had been framed on the wall of Pratchett devotee Chris Lawrence for forty years.
He contacted the Pratchett estate about it, which led to other fans Pat and Jan Harkin discovering the others after combing through decades’ worth of old newspapers.
Mr. Lawrence said:
“As a 15-year-old, The Search for the Keys connected with me, which is why I made the effort to gather each element.
“I cherished and protected them for nearly 35 years. Although having endured multiple relocations, I was unaware of their significance. After speaking with [Pratchett’s publisher] Colin Smythe, I realized their significance.”
Carefully buried
Smythe said: “During the years I was Terry’s publisher and then agent, he never provided me any assistance in locating his lesser works; yet, as he noted in the dedication to me in Dragons at Crumbling Castle, he had carefully buried stories.
“I had no idea how true these statements were.”
Sir Terry Pratchett wrote 70 books throughout his career and sold more than 70 million copies in 37 languages, spanning 44 years.
Although the rediscovered stories are not set in the Discworld universe, they “hint at the world Sir Terry would later build,” according to Penguin.
The publisher adds,
“Readers can expect to encounter characters ranging from cavemen to gnomes, wizards to ghosts, and read about time travel tourism, the haunting of Council offices, and an alien visitor.”
The stories will be published on October 5 under the title The Lost Stories: A Stroke of the Pen.
But, other unreleased Pratchett works will never be published. In 2017, a hard drive holding up to ten unfinished novels was destroyed by a steamroller, per the author’s request.
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