Editing Stranger in a Strange Land (section)

==Development==
Originally titled ''The Heretic'', the book was written in part as a deliberate attempt to challenge social norms. In the course of the story, Heinlein uses Smith's open-mindedness to re-evaluate such institutions as religion, money, [[monogamy]], and the fear of death. Heinlein completed writing it ten years after he had plotted it out in detail. He later wrote, "I had been in no hurry to finish it, as that story could not be published commercially until the public [[mores]] changed. I could see them changing and it turned out that I had timed it right."<ref>''[[Expanded Universe (Heinlein)|Expanded Universe]]'', p. 403.</ref>

Heinlein got the idea for the novel when he and his wife [[Virginia Heinlein|Virginia]] were [[brainstorming]] one evening in 1948. She suggested a new version of [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s ''[[The Jungle Book]]'' (1894), but with a child raised by Martians instead of wolves. He decided to go further with the idea and worked on the story on and off for more than a decade,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.heinleinsociety.org/CentennialReader/robert.html|title=Biography: Robert A. Heinlein|last=H. Patterson, Jr|first=William|website=Heinlein Society|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320231824/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/CentennialReader/robert.html|archive-date=20 March 2017|access-date=11 September 2017}}</ref> believing that contemporary society was not yet ready for it.<ref name="suplee19840905">{{Cite news |last=Suplee |first=Curt |date=1984-09-05 |title=In the Strange Land Of Robert Heinlein |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1984/09/05/in-the-strange-land-of-robert-heinlein/b7a2ee22-0a6e-4c29-8fc1-88b3e68ec08c/ |access-date=2021-07-29 |issn=0190-8286 |archive-date=2021-07-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210729161629/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1984/09/05/in-the-strange-land-of-robert-heinlein/b7a2ee22-0a6e-4c29-8fc1-88b3e68ec08c/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Heinlein was surprised that some readers thought the book described how he believed society should be organized, explaining: "I was ''not'' giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers ... It is an invitation to think – not to believe."

His editors at Putnam required him to cut its 220,000-word length down to 160,000 words before publication.{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}

Heinlein himself remarked in a letter he wrote to [[Oberon Zell-Ravenheart]] in 1972 that he thought his shorter, edited version was better.<ref name=beltane>Letter from Robert A. Heinlein to Oberon Zell, [[Green Egg]] magazine, Vol. XXII. No. 85 (Beltane, 1989).</ref> Heinlein also added some new material to the shorter version.

The book was dedicated in part to science fiction author [[Philip José Farmer]], who had explored sexual themes in works such as ''The Lovers'' (1952). It was also influenced by the satiric fantasies of [[James Branch Cabell]].