bts (10/29/82)
He had no idea what comprised her usual diet, but he
bought a can of New York roast beef and one of Venusian
frog-broth and a dozen fresh canal-apples and two
pounds of that Earth lettuce that grows so vigorously
in the fertile canal-soil of Mars. He felt that she
must surely find something to her liking in this broad
variety of edibles, and-- for his day had been very
satisfactory-- he hummed "The Green Hills of Earth" to
himself in a surprisingly good baritone as he climbed
the stairs.
This paragraph is from "Shambleau", by C.L. Moore, pub-
lished in the November 1933 Weird Tales. (I just read it in
a collection of her stories called Northwest Smith, after
their central character.) They're good stories for the
30's-- Mars is a desert and Venus a hot swamp-- but the
reference to the song in that last sentence surprised me.
While no words to it are given, this is the same title that
Heinlein used in one of his better-known short stories a few
years later.
Here's my question: If Heinlein didn't originate the
idea of a song by this title-- obviously meant to be sung by
home-sick Earthmen-- who did? Is this Moore story the first
mention or was there an earlier?
Simple answers via mail, discussions to this group.
Bruce Smith
bts.unc@udel-relay
duke!unc!btsFIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA (07/27/85)
From: FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA Sorry, Aline, there is no complete Green Hills of Earth. The story is about a space vagabond poet and his poems, and contains fragments of what is supposed to be his most famous poem (TGHoE), but the poem is not given in full. Rather than spoil the story, I recommend it. My copy is in Robert Heinlein : The Green Hills of Earth Pan Books, 1956 but it has been reprinted many many times. Robert Firth -------