The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version

The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version is a fantasy novella by Peter S. Beagle, a preliminary version of the original manuscript of The Last Unicorn (1968), originally written in 1962. It was printed as a 1,000-copy limited edition hardcover by Subterranean Press in 2006.

The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version

Front cover of the limited edition
Author	Peter S. Beagle
Cover artist	Michael Kaluta
Series	Last Unicorn
Genre	Fantasy
Published	2006 Subterranean Press
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (limited hardcover)
Pages	92
ISBN	978-1-59606-083-8
OCLC	82369523

This slim volume contained Beagle's original 85-page unfinished start on the story, plus a new introduction and afterword that set the fragment in context and discuss the differences between it and the complete novel published in 1968. These differences are extensive: the story takes place in the modern world, and aside from the unicorn and the butterfly, it contains none of the familiar characters from the novel. (The unicorn's traveling companion is a demon with two heads, one named Webster and the other Azazel.)

This original fragment was also scheduled to be reprinted in The First Last Unicorn and Other Beginnings, from Conlan Press in December 2014, but the publication was abandoned. Tachyon Publications reprinted the text again in 2018 under the title The Last Unicorn: The Lost Journey.

References

• Miller, Timothy S. (2024). Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn: A Critical Companion. Palgrave Science Fiction and Fantasy: A New Canon (1st ed.). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-53425-6. ISBN 978-3-031-53424-9. pp. 93-114.

External links

• The Last Unicorn: The Lost Version title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database