This is a roller coaster of a story taking you back to a sourcerous London of the early nineteenth century. You'll meet the well known poets of the period, Coleridge, Byron and Ashbless and also some of the most wonderfully crafted villains your're ever likely to come across.
In the US The Anubis Gates was first published in 1983 by Ace. This novel, of all of Tim Powers' books, has the best print record to date, (hence all the cover images on this page) and unlike some of his other excellent novels, is still available on the shelves of most bookstores today.
The Ace first edition was a mass market paperback. The ISBN was 0-441-02380-0, it was priced at $2.95. Copies of this edition are regularly available on the collectors market. My thanks to Mike Berro for the image of the very scarce uncorrected proof.
There have been regular subsequent reissues published by Ace. These mass market paperbacks carry the ISBN 0-441-02382-7 and accordingly the price has crept up over the years.
The most recent outing for this novel was as a trade paperback, again released by Ace, this time in January 1997. The cover art was by Jean Francois Podevin and the cost was $12.00. ISBN 0-441-00401-6.
A trade hardcover of The Anubis Gates was published in the United States in September 1989. Issued by Mark V Ziesing, this wonderful edition carried the ISBN 0-929480-10-4 and sold at a price of $25.00. Notably this edition contains some text that was not in the original Ace edition. Of this Powers says ... :-
"When Ace Books bought The Anubis Gates, they asked for cuts -- in fact, about an eighth of the book was excised. The Chatto and Windus editor knew this, and said, "This scene in Horrabin's underground dining hall -- the scene that starts with Horrabin looking up from the corpse of one of the rebellious beggar lords who has fallen from his high perch -- clearly this has been cut, clearly [this] is missing the beginning of the scene. Please restore the cut text here." Well, in fact that wasn't one of the places that had been cut -- I had written the scene in that _in media res_ way from the start -- but I didn't want to cross the editor, so I wrote a beginning for the scene and sent it to her. It's only a paragraph or two.
When Ziesing was doing the limited edition, he said, "Powers, if you want to restore cut bits, do it." But I re-read the original manuscript and decided that all the cuts had been beneficial, so I left the cut scenes out -- but I did give him the paragraph or two that I'd written for Roz Kaveney, the C&W editor. It's only two paragraphs at the most."
With an introduction by Ramsey Campbell and illustrations by Mark Bilokur, a limited edition of five hundred numbered copies was also issued, signed by both the contributors and the author. This special edition carried its own ISBN 0-929480-11-2 and cost $65.00.
A prize for any collector of Powers work, this edition is often offered by specialist book dealers. Try this link, filling in the search forms at Bookfinder.com to see if any are currently available.
The Anubis Gates has been awarded the following accolades :-
In the UK, The Anubis Gates appeared in hardcover in April 1985. Published by Chatto & Windus, ISBN 0-7011-2929-8, it cost £9.95. This edition had a very limited print run (only about 800 copies) and consequently (and due to the fact that this was the first hard cover edition) has become much sought after on the collectors market. Consequently these copies are quite pricey! Chatto also released a paperback (pictured above) with the ISBN 0-7011-2930-1 , priced £3.95. This edition is also now quite hard to find in a collectable condition. I have only ever seen it offered once online by a dealer who was asking $100.00 for it!! Jacket design was by Don Macpherson. My thanks once again to Mike Berro for the image of the very scarce uncorrected proof.
Three further paperback editions have been issued in the UK. The May 1986 edition released by Grafton featured cover art by Richard Clifton-Dey (who later did the artwork for the Grafton edition of On Stranger Tides). The was ISBN 0-586-06550-4, and the cost £2.95. The next release was in October 1993, this time issued by HarperCollins (who took Grafton over), ISBN same as the Grafton edition, cost £4.99. The most recent reprint was in July 1997, by Legend (now Orbit.) ISBN 0-09-963421-X, price £6.99.
Reflecting it's popularity, The Anubis Gates has been published all over the world, deservedly bringing the work of Tim Powers to a wider readership. This list is probably incomplete, so if you can help add to it or provide any cover art, please e-mail me.
A brand new spanish edition of LAS PUERTAS DE ANUBIS has just been released.
This edition, which features the wonderful cover art by Rafa Fonteriz pictured here, is published by Gigamesh, Barcelona, a new imprint headed by Alejo Cuervo the former F & SF editor of Martinez Roca, the company that previously published Powers in Spanish. An edition of The Drawing of the Dark has also been published recently by Gigamesh.
Visit their web site at www.gigamesh.com for further details on these new spanish language editions.
Page created 29th May 1998 - Last Updated:
© John Berlyne