Roger Zelazny’s Here There Be Dragons

Roger Zelazny’s Here There Be Dragons is a short fairy tale that first appeared as one volume of a two-volume limited-edition deluxe illustrated signed slipcased hardcover set published by Donald M. Grant in 1992. Zelazny wrote it and its companion story, Way Up High (about a girl and a pterosaur) in the late 1960s, and had Vaughn Bodé illustrate them before his untimely death in 1975. The story is about a kingdom that nobody ever left because its Royal Cartographers always wrote “Here There Be Dragons” at the margins of their maps, so everyone thought they were surrounded by dragons. Hilarity ensues when the princess wants fireworks for her birthday, but no one knows how to make them anymore, so the idea is hit upon to enlist the services of a dragon. And so it goes. It’s a clever little story, but you’re almost certain never to see it: the print run was limited to a thousand copies, and while the set is available used on Amazon and AbeBooks, it’s very, very expensive. I’m afraid it has become collectible. (I was lent a copy. I have to give it back.)