Tropnecia is a very small country somewhere in the Tosheroon Islands, but once upon a time it very nearly conquered Great Britain. Pratchett died in 2015, leaving behind the bestselling Discworld fantasy series, as well as Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman, and the Carnegie-medal-winning children’s book The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. “With more tales of everything that would go on to make Terry Pratchett books the phenomenon they became – humour, satire, adventure and fantastical excellence – we just couldn’t deny readers these gems, and the chance to read a Terry story for the first time, one last time. His incredible talent and imagination knew no bounds,” said Rob Wilkins, Pratchett’s former assistant and manager of his estate. “When it comes to Terry, there is always going to be an embarrassment of riches. As soon as you saw a place, you had to conquer it, and usually the English Channel was full of ships queuing up to come and have a good conquer.” In The Tropnecian Invasion of Great Britain, he writes: “That was how things were done in history. The stories in The Time-travelling Caveman, published by Puffin, see him exercising his usual dry wit. Which is exactly who a Terry Pratchett book should be for.” That is what makes the stories so special – they are for kids and adults, and kids who want to be adults, and adults who are still really kids. “There is so much in these stories that shows you the germ of an idea, which would go on to become a fully fledged Terry Pratchett novel, and so much hilarity that we know kids will love.
It is very fitting that some of the first stories he wrote will be in the last collection by him to be published,” said Knowles and Rawlinson in a statement. “After reading them, we knew we had to create one final book. Dragons at Crumbling Castle, a first collection of the stories, was published in 2014.
Editions of the newspapers containing the stories sell for hundreds of pounds online. He published his first novel, The Carpet People, in 1971, when he was only 23.
Pratchett left school at 17, in 1965, to work at the Bucks Free Press, writing a weekly Children’s Circle story column as part of his new job. The stories appeared in the Bucks Free Press and Western Daily Press in the 60s and early 70s. “Bedwyr was the handsomest of all the shepherds, and his dog, Bedwetter, the finest sheepdog in all Wales,” writes the young Pratchett, with typical flourish. The tales in The Time-travelling Caveman, many of them never released in book form before, range from a steam-powered rocket’s flight to Mars to a Welsh shepherd’s discovery of the resting place of King Arthur. The final collection of early stories from the late Terry Pratchett, written while the Discworld creator was a young reporter, will be published in September.
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