The "Big Bite"
Twelfth installment of The Big Bite — on dread, politics, and journalism. Mailer's reprintings of this column are complex: the first third appears as an untitled introduction to 'The Seventh Presidential Paper: On Dread' in The Presidential Papers (63.37); the remainder, with the exception of the first sentence, is reprinted in Existential Errands (72.7) and Pieces and Pontifications (82.19) as 'Two Oddments from Esquire.' Approximately 250 words from the first third also appear in the November 1962 Big Bite (62.x — wait 63.12) as an excerpt from 63.37. See 90.2.
The “Big Bite.” Esquire, October 1963, 50, 52. Column. The “dread” column — on dread, politics, and journalism, a Mailer theme running back to Advertisements for Myself and forward to The Presidential Papers.
The reprinting history is intricate. Per Lennon: the first third appears as an untitled introduction to “The Seventh Presidential Paper: On Dread” in The Presidential Papers (63.37); Mailer fails to note this reprinting in his otherwise careful list of acknowledgments in 63.37, titled “Appendix B — Projects and Places.” The remainder of the column, with the exception of the first sentence, is reprinted in Existential Errands (72.7) and Pieces and Pontifications (82.19) as “Two Oddments from Esquire.”
In addition, approximately 250 words from the first third are reprinted in the November Big Bite (63.12) as an excerpt from 63.37, which was published on 8 November. It is uncertain whether Mailer was reprinting portions of Big Bite in 63.37, or publishing advance excerpts from his miscellany in the column, or both. Whatever the case, the same 250 words on dread, politics, and journalism appeared in print three times during October and November 1963.
Related pages
- 1963 | Esquire | The Presidential Papers | The "Big Bite"
- Letter to Peter Balbert (31 January 1989) (90.2)
- Existential Errands (72.7) | The Essential Mailer (82.19)