Star Trek Writers Bible

[kappie]

Yes, there is a writers bible for the original series. It was on rexograph heavy duty paper stock (remember cutting the stencils and the great smell of the clear liquid!!). The cover is orange. It was on display at the Smithsonian exhibit of Star Trek. The first page gives credit to Desilu Studios who backed Gene R when he was trying to push this to Paramount.
It is a very rare item. I would like to know if there are any more out there, and what it would cost to own this item.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

You can find it all over the place, but the legitimate place to purchase it would be Roddenberry.com.

 

[Maurice]

No offense, kappie, but as a newcomer it's a little funny to have you coming in here and telling something about Star Trek as if we'd never heard it before.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Holy crap! Uhura is black!?!

 

[Therin of Andor]

It is a very rare item. I would like to know if there are any more out there, and what it would cost to own this item.

It's not so rare. It was probably Star Trek Enterprises/Lincoln Enterprises/Roddenberry.com's biggest seller over 40 years of mail order services to ST fans of the world.

Furthermore, many small-press fanzine operators and mail order firms made their own bootleg copies to sell.

 

[Pseudo]

It is a very rare item. I would like to know if there are any more out there, and what it would cost to own this item.

It's not so rare. It was probably Star Trek Enterprises/Lincoln Enterprises/Roddenberry.com's biggest seller over 40 years of mail order services to ST fans of the world.

Furthermore, many small-press fanzine operators and mail order firms made their own bootleg copies to sell.

It's so rare, I think it's on the internet.

 

[Christopher]

Well, there are tons of reproductions of it out there, yes, but maybe the original poster is asking about "originals," if the term has any meaning for a document that would've been widely copied and distributed to writers, directors, production staffers, agents, etc. I doubt there's a meaningful way to draw a line between "original" and "reproduction" for such a thing, and I doubt any '60s-vintage copies that survive would be in decent condition, given that they were just mimeographed or Xeroxed pages held together by paper fasteners. I doubt any of them would have any significant collector's value unless they were autographed or something.

The first page gives credit to Desilu Studios who backed Gene R when he was trying to push this to Paramount.

No, it was Desilu Studios that produced Star Trek's pilots and about the first half of the original series. In 1967, during production on ST's second season, Gulf + Western purchased both Paramount Pictures and Desilu and merged them into a single company, so ST became Paramount's property in that merger.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

Actually I have one around here somewhere. Third revision from April 1967. Picked it up at a con in 1976. It's bagged, kept flat and is in near mint condition. Paid about $60 for it back then, the copies were only $15. No idea what it's worth now. Might have to check on it and see.

 

[Vance]

Not much, sadly. Lincoln Enterprises was notorious for making reproductions of scripts, bibles, et al and claiming them as 'authentic' over the years. It's nearly impossible to tell what really was 'from the day' and what wasn't memeographed during the early 1970s.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, if it was at a con in '76, nine years after the date of publication, then it was probably a later copy made by Lincoln Enterprises. Any copy actually printed in 1967 would've been used by the people writing, directing, and making the show, and would probably be far below mint condition. Series bibles aren't created for the collector's market, they're created for people who actually have cause to use them, consult them, write in them, dog-ear their pages, drag them around with them to the set and expose them to the elements, whatever.

I mean, come on, they're all the third revision from 1967. That's the default one Lincoln Enterprises sold/sells. It's the version I have, and I think I got mine in the '80s.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Furthermore, many small-press fanzine operators and mail order firms made their own bootleg copies to sell.

I don't know of a single fanzine press which "made their own bootleg copies to sell." Not a one.

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ Especially when you could just get one from Lincoln Enterprises for fifteen bucks.

 

[plynch]

Why "Lincoln"? Always wondered.

edit : Holy cow - just saw my avatar - fleet captain now! Isn't that what Garth is/was? How time flies. Thanks for the fun over the past few years, all.

(And yes, yes, I know, "LORRD GAARTH"!)

But I digress: why Lincoln?

 

[KDoug]

Why "Lincoln"? Always wondered

I'm not certain either, but I think it could be that Gene Roddenberry had a liking of Abraham Lincoln or at least the name Lincoln. Gene wrote The Savage Curtain, which of course had the duplicate of Abraham Lincoln. And he also wrote Assignment: Earth, which had Roberta Lincoln as one of the guest characters.

 

[Christopher]

^Yup, Lincoln was one of Roddenberry's heroes, so he used the name a lot. (Although in the original pilot pitch for Assignment: Earth, Roberta's last name was Hornblower.)

 

[Captain Robert April]

Actually, the name of the mail order company was Lincoln Enterprises before Gene bought it and incorporated it with his prior operation, Star Trek Enterprises. He just decided to keep the name, probably for the reasons listed above.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I don't know of a single fanzine press which "made their own bootleg copies to sell." Not a one.

There was a guy in Australia, for one example, who made annual trips to Shore Leave and boasted that he bought one of every new fanzine and Lincoln document and mass produced them here (without permission) on an offset printer, to sell on his huckster table, so he wouldn't have to risk paying freight charges, import duty, or having regular shipments of raunchy K/S material stopped by Customs.

I also learned of a guy who did the same in the US. The copies he sold on his tables were his own bootleg copies, made from Lincoln stuff.

There was also a mail order firm (New Eye Studio, IIRC), who sold their own printings of the "Phase II" scripts that Lincoln sold (briefly) - before Lincoln was asked to stop by Paramount.

 

[Mysterion]

There was also a mail order firm (New Eye Studio, IIRC), who sold their own printings of the "Phase II" scripts that Lincoln sold (briefly) - before Lincoln was asked to stop by Paramount.

Are the Phase II scripts available anywhere at present? I've got the Reeves-Stevens book, and copies of the Writer's Guide and the Kitumba two-parter script, but would love to complete the collection.

 

[Maurice]

^^^I have the first hour of Kitumba's script. I can;t seem to locate the second.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Are the Phase II scripts available anywhere at present?

Not legally, no. Why Lincoln had to pull them: the original writers weren't benefiting from the sales in any way. Paramount had paid for each script and premise to be developed, so the original writers aren't supposed to distribute them either. They belonged to Paramount until they decided to use them (ie. "In Thy Image" for ST:TMP, and "The Child" and "Devil's Due" for TNG.) Pocket Books once had an official omnibus coming out featuring them all (even cover art had been shown), but the many legalities over rights caused the book to be halted.

I hear that the head of the "Phase II" fan film team, James Cawley, does have access to all the scripts originally sold by Lincoln Enterprises. He once told me he got his collection from Lincoln, which surprised me, because I didn't think I missed a catalogue! (It must have been a brief period in the early 80s, since I never saw a catalogue containing the list to order. Much later, a few mail order firms offered a few bootlegs - on a separate sheet to their usual catalogues - and one firm was offering a special deal for people who could send in the ones they didn't have.)