I am very curious about Wellman. I read The stories about John The Balladeer and would like to read more by Wellman. My grandfather was in one of the stories. It seems hard to find his books. Is there a good place to get perhaps a collected works. My whole life is weid. I was watching The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and there was this episode called "Where the Woodbine Twineth" I did not particularlly like the episode, but I kept thinking and thinking about the phrase I even dreamed about it, so I looked it up, and it was connected to this man who wrote about my grandfather. Curiouser and curiouser. What does this mean, "Where the woodbine twineth"? If you know what publishing house is publishing Wellman, I would love to read more. It doesn't look as though many people come here, but everything happens for a reason.

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Hi Gail, though there is a story by this name by Wellman, I'm afraid this is a case of mistaken identity in regards to the Hitchcock TV show. That episode was adapted from a different story of the same name written by Davis Grubb.

Would you like to tell us about your grandfather and his connection to Wellman?

As for books, Nightshade Books currently sells omnibus editions of most of Wellman's stories in 5 volumes. They can be found either at online retailers like Amazon.com or at the Nightshade website
http://nightshadebooks.com/cart.php?m=search_results&search=wellman

Also BAEN books offers John the Balladeer for free to read online here
http://www.library.beau.org/lib/ebooks/baen/03/John the Balladeer/index.htm

You may have to cut and paste the links to make them work. This message board is truly ancient.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the information; I will check out the Night shade and Amazon. I am still very curious if "where the woodbine twineth" is a North Carolina phrase and or what its significance is, I think the story on Alfred Hitchcock was set in New Orleans, but it just had such an Elizabethan/North Carolina sound
My grandfather was in John the Balladeer, the short story "Nine Yards of Cloth". I think he was a friend of Wellman's. I am interested in Wellman's work. What is your connection to him. Why do you like me?

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Wait! Did not mean me, Meant Wellman. Why do you like Wellman? Ha.

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Glory, God and Gold: A Narrative History is actually by his brother Paul I. Wellman, not Manly Wade Wellman.

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"where the woodbine twineth" was a popular song of the 1870s - but the imagery goes back to Shakespear, Robert Burns and earlier.

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