Monday 30 March 2020

Journeys End At World's End Or Worlds' End

Another parallel between Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman is these two titles:

"Journeys End" by Poul Anderson; (Scroll down)
Worlds' End by Neil Gaiman.

Anderson's "End" is a verb whereas Gaiman's is a noun. "Journeys" lacks an expected apostrophe whereas Worlds' has an unusually placed apostrophe.

The more familiar phrase, "world's end," is also relevant to Anderson:

 With a host of furious fancies
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end:
Methinks it is no journey.

-copied from here.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I'm reminded of Anderson's amusing comments about how he and Anthony Boucher had to struggle with well meaning proof readers about the correct title for "Journeys End." Boucher had to overrule the proof readers insistence on "Journey'S End."

And some later republishings were still blundering about that title!

Ad astra! Sean