With the Night Mail

Synopsis

<ul><li> The story of an overnight journey by air from London to Quebec, set in a world governed by the Aerial Board of Control. <li> The 1905 magazine publications show headings, below the title and credit(s), that suggest the story is from year 2025 (<i>McClure's</i>, US) and state that it is from 2147 (<i>Windsor</i>, UK). </ul>

Notes

• The 1905 texts differ slightly from each other and that augmented in 1909. Lead sentences: • "At 21 o'clock of a gusty winter's night I stood on the lower stages of the G. P. O. outward mail tower." (McClure's) • "At 9.30 p.m. of a windy winter's night I stood on the lower stages of the G.P.O. Outward Mail Tower." (Windsor) • "At nine o'clock of a gusty winter's night I stood on the lower stages of one of the G. P. O. outward mail towers." (Doubleday, Page (US), 1909; page 3) Note: "With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D." may be considered the title of the 1909 version of the narrative alone. See p[1]; compare title page (which shows "A. D").
• Expanded 1909 as "With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together With Extracts from the Contemporary Magazine in Which it Appeared)" --probably also novelette length-- which comprises the 1905 narrative lightly revised and other material purportedly published in a 2000 A.D. magazine; published in 1909 with new illustrations by Frank X. Leyendecker (and one old one by H. Reuterdahl).
• The narrative, any version of its text, may appear alone in some of the reported publications after 1909, or not.
• Use of the subtitle "A Story of 2000 A.D." in a later publication strongly implies that the narrative appears in its lightly revised 1909 version, whether or not it is augmented as in 1909. The lead sentence of the narrative may be decisive (far above).