Editing Riverworld (section)

===Original, unpublished manuscript===
''Riverworld'' began when Farmer wrote a 150,000-word novel, calling it ''Owe for the Flesh'', over six weeks in the fall of 1952<ref name="Introduction">Farmer, Philip Jose (1983), "Author's Introduction" to ''[[River of Eternity]]''; [[Huntington Woods, Michigan]]: [[Phantasia Press]], pp i-x.</ref> and submitted it at the last minute to the Shasta Science-Fiction Novel Prize Contest. He won the contest, with assurances of publication, but circumstances conspired to ensure that that would not happen for many years.<ref name="Life">[[Mary Turzillo|Turzillo, Mary]] (writing as Mary T. Brizzi), "Philip José Farmer: His Life," in ''Philip José Farmer'', Starmont Reader's Guide series, Starmont House, 1980, pp. 13-14.  {{ISBN|978-0916732059}}</ref> The complete manuscript, now believed lost, consisted of four "books":

*''Owe for the Flesh''
**"The Great Cry"
**"A State of Honesty"
**"The River of Eternity"
**"The Paddle Wheeled Comet"

In about 1981, and in the wake of the success of the Riverworld novels, Farmer issued a general request to anyone who might have the original manuscript. An 80,000-word document entitled "River of Eternity" was then discovered in a garage and returned to Farmer. This turned out to be, not the original, but a version produced in the mid-1950s by Farmer (who had entirely forgotten about it) from the third "book" at the request of the publisher [[Shasta Publishers|Melvin Korshak]]. This document was published unaltered in 1983 by [[Phantasia Press]] as ''[[River of Eternity]]'' and is generally considered to be of mostly academic interest.