Editing Dune (novel) (section)

==Origins==
[[File:USA Oregon Dunes.jpg|thumb|235px|The [[Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area|Oregon Dunes]], near [[Florence, Oregon]], served as an inspiration for the ''Dune'' saga.]]

After his novel ''[[The Dragon in the Sea]]'' was published in 1957, Herbert traveled to [[Florence, Oregon]], at the north end of the [[Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area|Oregon Dunes]]. Here, the [[United States Department of Agriculture]] was attempting to use [[poverty grass (disambiguation)|poverty grasses]] to stabilize the [[dune|sand dunes]]. Herbert claimed in a letter to his literary agent, [[Lurton Blassingame]], that the moving dunes could "swallow whole cities, lakes, rivers, highways."<ref>''[[The Road to Dune]]'' (2005), p. 264, letter by Frank Herbert to his agent Lurton Blassingame outlining "They Stopped the Moving Sands."</ref> Herbert's article on the dunes, "They Stopped the Moving Sands", was never completed (and only published decades later in ''[[The Road to Dune]]''), but its research sparked Herbert's interest in ecology and deserts.<ref>{{Cite book|last=O'Reilly|first=Timothy|url=https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107740264|title=Frank Herbert|date=1981|publisher=Frederick Ungar Publishing Company|page=39|access-date=August 1, 2021|archive-date=August 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210806013108/https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107740264|url-status=live}}</ref>

Herbert further drew inspiration from [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] mentors like "Indian Henry" (as Herbert referred to the man to his son; likely a Henry Martin of the [[Hoh tribe]]) and Howard Hansen. Both Martin and Hansen grew up on the [[Quileute]] [[Quileute Indian Reservation|reservation]] near Herbert's hometown. According to historian [[Daniel Immerwahr]], Hansen regularly shared his writing with Herbert. "[[White people|White men]] are eating the earth," Hansen told Herbert in 1958, after sharing a piece on the effect of logging on the Quileute reservation. "They're gonna turn this whole planet into a wasteland, just like [[North Africa]]." The world could become a "big dune," Herbert responded in agreement.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Immerwahr|first=Daniel|title=Heresies of 'Dune'|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/heresies-of-dune/|website=Los Angeles Review of Books|date=November 19, 2020|access-date=June 28, 2022|archive-date=June 28, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220628235839/https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/heresies-of-dune/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Herbert was also interested in the idea of the [[superhero]] [[Mysticism|mystique]] and [[messiah]]s. He believed that [[feudalism]] was a natural condition humans fell into, where some led and others gave up the responsibility of making decisions and just followed orders. He found that desert environments have historically given birth to several major religions with messianic impulses. He decided to join his interests together so he could play religious and ecological ideas against each other. In addition, he was influenced by the story of [[T. E. Lawrence]] and the "messianic overtones" in Lawrence's involvement in the [[Arab Revolt]] during [[World War I]]. In an early version of ''Dune'', the hero was actually very similar to Lawrence of Arabia, but Herbert decided the plot was too straightforward and added more layers to his story.<ref>{{Cite book|last=O'Reilly|first=Timothy|url=https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107740264|title=Frank Herbert|date=1981|publisher=Frederick Ungar Publishing Company|pages=43–45|access-date=August 1, 2021|archive-date=August 6, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210806013108/https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107740264|url-status=live}}</ref>

Herbert drew heavy inspiration also from [[Lesley Blanch]]'s ''The Sabres of Paradise'' (1960), a [[narrative history]] recounting a mid-19th-century [[Caucasian War|conflict in the Caucasus]] between rugged caucasian Muslim tribes and the expanding [[Russian Empire]].<ref name="LAR"/> Language used on both sides of that conflict become terms in Herbert's world—''[[chakobsa]]'', a [[Peoples of the Caucasus|Caucasian]] hunting language, becomes a battle language of humans spread across the galaxy; ''kanly'', a word for blood feud in the 19th-century Caucasus, represents a feud between Dune's noble Houses; ''sietch'' and ''tabir'' are both words for camp borrowed from [[Ukrainian Cossacks]] (of the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe]]).<ref name="LAR"/>

Herbert also borrowed some lines which Blanch stated were Caucasian proverbs. ''"To kill with the point lacked artistry"'', used by Blanch to describe the Caucasus peoples' love of swordsmanship, becomes in Dune ''"Killing with the tip lacks artistry"'', a piece of advice given to a young Paul during his training. ''"Polish comes from the city, wisdom from the hills"'', a Caucasian [[aphorism]], turns into a desert expression: ''"Polish comes from the cities, wisdom from the desert".<ref name="LAR"/>''

Another significant source of inspiration for ''Dune'' was Herbert's experiences with [[psilocybin]] and his hobby of cultivating mushrooms, according to [[Mycology|mycologist]] [[Paul Stamets]]'s account of meeting Herbert in the 1980s:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stamets |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Stamets |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qtsTH7ekvVYC&q=mycelium+running |title=Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World |date=2011 |publisher=Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale |isbn=978-1-60774-124-4 |pages=126–127 |language=en |access-date=February 13, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240531173735/https://books.google.com/books?id=qtsTH7ekvVYC&q=mycelium+running#v=snippet&q=mycelium%20running&f=false |archive-date=May 31, 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref><blockquote>Frank went on to tell me that much of the premise of ''Dune''—the magic [[Melange (fictional drug)|spice]] (spores) that allowed the bending of space ([[Psychedelic experience|tripping]]), the [[Sandworm (Dune)|giant sand worms]] ([[maggot]]s digesting mushrooms), the eyes of the [[Fremen|Freman]] (the [[cerulean]] blue of ''[[Psilocybe]]'' mushrooms), the mysticism of the female spiritual warriors, the [[Bene Gesserit]]s (influenced by the tales of [[María Sabina|Maria Sabina]] and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico)—came from his perception of the fungal life cycle, and his imagination was stimulated through his experiences with the use of [[Psilocybin mushroom|magic mushrooms]].</blockquote>Herbert spent the next five years researching, writing, and revising. He published a three-part serial ''Dune World'' in the monthly ''[[Analog Science Fiction and Fact|Analog]]'', from December 1963 to February 1964. The serial was accompanied by several illustrations that were not published again. After an interval of a year, he published the much slower-paced five-part ''The Prophet of Dune'' in the January–May 1965 issues.<ref>''The Road to Dune'', p. 272."...Frank Herbert toyed with the story about a desert world full of hazards and riches. He plotted a short adventure novel, ''Spice Planet'', but he set that outline aside when his concept grew into something much more ambitious."</ref><ref>''The Road to Dune'', pp. 263–264.</ref> The first serial became "Book One: Dune" in the final published ''Dune'' novel, and the second serial was divided into "Book Two: Muad'dib" and "Book Three: The Prophet". The serialized version was expanded, reworked, and submitted to more than twenty publishers, each of whom rejected it. The novel, ''Dune'', was finally accepted and published in August 1965 by [[Chilton Books]], a printing house better known for publishing auto repair manuals.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Herbert |first=Brian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hlbSrcGnhRIC&pg=PA194 |title=Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert |date=2004 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-7653-0647-0 |pages=194, 208 |access-date=July 30, 2020 |archive-date=May 31, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240531173735/https://books.google.com/books?id=hlbSrcGnhRIC&pg=PA194#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Sterling Lanier]], an editor at Chilton, had seen Herbert's manuscript and had urged his company to take a risk in publishing the book. However, the first printing, priced at {{USD|5.95|1965|long=no}}, did not sell well and was poorly received by critics as being atypical of science fiction at the time. Chilton considered the publication of ''Dune'' a write-off and Lanier was fired.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://jalopnik.com/dune-was-originally-published-by-a-car-repair-manual-co-1847940372 | title = Nobody Wanted To Publish Dune Except A Car Repair Manual Company | first = Steve | last = DaSilva | date = October 26, 2021 | access-date = October 27, 2021 | work = [[Jalopnik]] | archive-date = October 26, 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211026234927/https://jalopnik.com/dune-was-originally-published-by-a-car-repair-manual-co-1847940372 | url-status = live }}</ref> Over the course of time, the book gained critical acclaim, and its popularity spread by word-of-mouth to allow Herbert to start working full time on developing the sequels to ''Dune'', elements of which were already written alongside ''Dune''.<ref name="new yorker endures"/>

At first Herbert considered using [[Mars]] as setting for his novel, but eventually decided to use a fictional planet instead. His son Brian said that "Readers would have too many preconceived ideas about that planet, due to the number of stories that had been written about it."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.geekwire.com/2021/dune-science-fiction-saga-parallels-real-science-oregons-dunes/|title=How the ''Dune'' science-fiction saga parallels the real science of Oregon's dunes|first=Alan|last=Boyle|date=October 21, 2021|website=[[GeekWire]]|access-date=June 14, 2022|archive-date=December 2, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211202032227/https://www.geekwire.com/2021/dune-science-fiction-saga-parallels-real-science-oregons-dunes/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Herbert dedicated his work "to the people whose labors go beyond ideas into the realm of 'real materials'—to the dry-land [[Ecology|ecologists]], wherever they may be, in whatever time they work, this effort at prediction is dedicated in humility and admiration."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Landa |first1=Edward R. |last2=Feller |first2=Christian |title=Soil and Culture |date=2010 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-90-481-2960-7 |page=101 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JSG84ikYN-wC&pg=PA101 |language=en |access-date=September 23, 2020 |archive-date=May 31, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240531173735/https://books.google.com/books?id=JSG84ikYN-wC&pg=PA101#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref>