There have been certain editions of I Am Legend that I have been aware of but unable to source for a number of years. One such edition was the second German translation from 1982, featuring a unique, if inappropriate, cover by Michael Hasted.
Originally published by Heyne Books in 1963 (and subsequently reprinted in 1970) under the title Ich Der Letzte Mensch (I, The Last Man), when translated by Werner Gronwald the date of the story was shifted from 1976 to 1986. In 1982, a new translation was created by Lore Strassl, under the more direct translation of the title, Ich Bin Legende. It's interesting to note that this edition references the prior German edition as an abridged version (which is not referenced anywhere in 1963 release), although both books contain 21 chapters and would appear to be complete. Strassl set the dates back to those from the original novel (1976), and one other notable difference between the two translations for the final line — Ich bin eine legende (I am a legend) in the former, and ich bin legende (I am legend) in the latter. The lack of the article was clearly a deliberate choice of Matheson, and therefore a more accurate translation.
When I finally procured a copy of this elusive edition through abebooks, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it also featured 12 interior illustrations by artist John Stewart, a British artist who provided illustrations to numerous science fiction novels published by Heyne Books.
In 2019, a lot of five of the twelve illustrations Stewart created for the book went up for auction, and thankfully, I was able to acquire them. I'd love to find the remaining seven pieces to complete the collection, but am happy to have any examples of original published I Am Legend artwork in the archive.
It's particularly cool that in addition to signing and dating each piece, Stewart annotated the reverse of each piece with the number in sequence, the book title and author, and best of all, the quoted line from the book which he was illustrating (along with a chapter/page reference).
Now, if you're anything like me, the first thing you wanted to do after seeing the artist annotations was confirm which edition of the book he had used for reference. I didn't know at the time that Stewart was British, or I would have likely started checking my Corgi editions. It didn't take long to determine that the quotes were all present on the pages mentioned in the Bantam paperback edition. In retrospect, given my recent discovery about that book's availability in the UK, it makes perfect sense why he would have used what was otherwise assumed to be a US paperback of the novel as his reference.
For the record, following this 1982 edition, the book would remain out of print in Germany until 2008(!); that edition being only the fourth time the book has been published in Germany (with no subsequent editions to date). And unlike nearly every other country that released the book in the wake of the 2007 film adaptation with a Will Smith image on the cover, Heyne instead chose to use the manipulated James Thiesen artwork, with initial copies featuring a hype sticker noting, "now in the cinema."
Be sure to check back next week for another item from the I Am Legend Archive!
