H.G. Wells isn't the only author who published an earlier version of one of his novels in a separate edition. Peter Straub is publishing The Skylark, a version of his new novel A Dark Matter before it changed in editing.
Straub explains to Suvudu:
The Skylark is primarily intended for the dedicated reader who collects first editions and is interested in my process. It represents the very different novel this book was when first submitted, the novel I fondly thought was finished. Because of the hundreds of pages of lost material, I thought that it should be available to those who most wanted to see it. A Dark Matter is a better book, more elegant, more efficient, and a testimony to the editing process, but its wild and wooly original version has a lot of energy and wildness, and a total willingness to gamble, going for it.
The Skylark comes out this fall, and the limited edition sells for $50, or $250 for a "lettered" version.
I bet there are a number of other books whose "wild and wooly" early texts would be fascinating to read. Which novels would you like to read an unedited, no-holds-barred early version of? [Suvudu]