Essay on Tim McLaughlin's "Notes Toward Absolute Zero"
By Dene Grigar, PhD
Shipwrecks, train wrecks, and wrecked hearts permeate Tim McLaughlin’s Notes Toward Absolute Zero (NTAZ), a hypertext narrative produced with Storyspace in 1993 and first published by Eastgate Systems, Inc. in 1995. As the title suggestions, it is a story about the cold, one so absolute that the lack of order and predictability causes energy to be depleted. As Rob Kendall points out in his study of the work, “Parsing the Cold: McLaughlin’s Notes Toward Absolute Zero,” the overarching theme of the narrative is the power of cold to both destroy and preserve. [1]
Story Strands
The Franklin arctic expedition, led by seasoned Arctic seafarer Captain Sir John Franklin, left from Greenhite, England on May 19, 1945 with two ships, the Erebus and Terror, powered with a 50-horsepower engine, three years worth of supplies––and elite provisions like an organ and a 1200 volume library––to explore the Northwest Passage. Franklin’s two ships became icebound in the Canadian Arctic and were lost. After the navy had given up hope finding the men, Franklin’s wife Lady Jane commissioned a search team led by Francis McClintock as a last-ditch effort for the widow to find her husband. McClintock and his crew left on July 2, 1857 from Aberdeen on the Fox in search of Franklin’s expedition. Two years later his party found two notes, the second of which was dated April 25, 1848 and detailed its fate: The ships had become trapped in ice off King William Island for over a year and a half and eventually abandoned. It was believed that Franklin and several of his men died a few months later on June 11, 1847. Research undertaken in the last 30 years suggests exposure and disease caused their deaths. There is also evidence of cannibalism. At the time, the search for the expedition was so popular that songs, like “Lady Franklin’s Lament,” were common. The fates of Lady Jane and McClintock are also noteworthy. Lady Jane traveled extensively, including to Australia and New Zealand, founding secondary schools for boys and girls, and helping female convicts. She also founded the gallery for Hobart now called Lady Franklin Gallery. When she died, McClintock served as one of her pallbearers. McClintock’s reputation is mixed: He is remembered for falsely claiming that Franklin had discovered the Northwest Passage but was knighted during his lifetime for his efforts to find Franklin.
Winter, a Canadian photographer, encounters Jericho while both are stranded at a hotel due to a train wreck. Winter’s travels were to take him to visit the cemetery graves of relatives; Jericho’s had brought her from the funeral of her Uncle Magel. Amid the bitter cold and stress of their journey, they spend their time in conversation and love-making. Winter learns that Jericho was close to her uncle, a hypnotist, who disappeared from her life when she is a child of 11. Carrying the loss with her to her adulthood, she searched for clues of his whereabouts, eventually learning that he was last seen at Vancouver’s Men’s Mission. She left that place with his paltry possessions, including a suitcase full of stamped envelopes. From Winter Jericho learns that he had spent time in Ireland searching for the ghost of J. Bruce Ismay, the owner of the White Star Line who survived the sinking of the Titanic only to retire in scandal in a small Irish town. After days of sharing intimate details of their lives, Winter woke up one morning to find Jericho gone. Like Jericho in search for her beloved uncle, Winter wandered the streets of Vancouver in search of Jericho.
One evening while Magel Constantine practiced hypnotism on an audience at one of his shows, he imagined a wolfhound beside the podium. Horribly afraid of dogs, he dashed out of the theatre, leaving the audience under his spell. The event caused him to abandon Jericho and wander the streets alone. Readers learn that he kept lists, including, according to Jericho, “[n]ames of the dead” and “descriptions of exotic foods” (“Magel”), because he believed reciting a list to people would hypnotize them.
Structure
Called by the author a “philatelic novella,” NTAZ, a story about lost connections between places and among people, uses postage stamps as navigational clues structured into two main sections: the Frontspiece and Backispiece. The former consists of an interface of bitmap images of 17 different postage stamps from Canada, Great Britain, and Ireland; the later of 16 different bitmap images from the US, Canada, Ireland, Great Britain, Scotland, and Morocco. Readers can move between the two sections several ways. Clicking on the “Canadada” stamp in the Frontispiece, for example, goes to the Backispiece while clicking on the “Zeropost” stamp in the Backispiece takes readers to the Frontispiece.
Readers will note that some of the stamps featured in the interfaces are real and others are fiction. [2] All stamps take readers through unique paths containing lexias that provide one or more hyperlinked words or phrases that can be followed. Like other Storyspace works, Notes Toward Absolute Zero can also be read via the default path by clicking the return key or by clicking on words in the lexias. Readers can also hold down the Option + Command keys to see words that are hyperlinked or “anchored” to other places in the text (Keep et al). There is an “H” option in the Toolbar that takes readers back “home.” [3]
After loading the work, readers encounter a screen entitled “press return.” An instructions screen follows that tells readers how to “travel through the fiction” and suggests at the end of the information, to “select the word NEXT.” Double-clicking “NEXT” continues the instructions. At the end of that screen, readers can double-click “Begin Reading” and go to the Frontispiece.
Starting at the top left of the interface––a 20¢ stamp featuring Queen Victoria––readers can move to a screen dedicated to the stamp, entitled “Vic 20c.” Clicking on the image, readers encounter the lexia, “Victoria” introducing a series of lexias about the McClintock expedition. To return to the Frontispiece, readers can use the arrow on the Toolbar as a return key back through the lexias. Next to the “Vic 20c” stamp is the 34¢ Canadian stamp featuring a vintage train. This stamp takes readers to the bitmap image of the stamp where they can then click forward to the lexia, “Accidents.” Here a quote by Paul Virilio from Pure War reminds readers that “[e]very technology provokes, programs a specific accident. For example, when they invented the railroad . . . at the same time they invented the railroad catastrophe.” Following this path, readers are put into a scenario of a train accident where the train “crumple[s] and fold[s] itself into the mountainside.” This pattern is used for all of the 33 stamps in the two sections of the work if one follows the paths using the default navigation option.
Below is the complete list of the stamps. Included are the country of origin, value, name, and lexia title. Those stamps unable to be identified are noted with a question mark (?); those that vary from the original are noted with an asterisk (*); those identified as fiction are marked with a plus sign (+):
Frontispiece Postage Stamps (from left to right)
| Canada | Vic 20¢ | Queen Victoria | Vic20c |
| Canada | 34¢ | Train | Engine 2 |
| + Canadada | -- | Stylized maple leaf | Canadada |
| Canada | Canada 3¢ | Queen Victoria | Vic 3c |
| * Canada | Canada 37¢ | Train | Engine 1 |
| British | 31p | Bridgeworks | Greenwich |
| Canada | Canada 37¢ | Tahitan Bear Dog | Dog 37c |
| Ireland | 38p | Sheep | Eire 38p |
| Canada | 4¢ | Trains | Train 4c |
| Canada | 2p | Queen Victoria | Vic2c |
| Canada | 8¢ | Swimming | Swim 8c |
| Canada | 15¢ | Beaver | Beaver |
| ? Canada | $5 | Ship | Ship $5 |
| Canada | 34¢ | Rotary Snowplow | Plow 34c |
| Canada | 32¢ | Train | Engine 3 |
| Canada | $2 | McAdam Railway Station | Station $2 |
| + Canada | 8¢ | Lady Jane Franklin | L. Franklin 8c |
Backispiece Postage Stamps (from left to right)
| USA | 29¢ | Elvis Presley | Elvis 29c |
| Ireland | 28p | Evening at Tangier | Eire 28p |
| + Canada | 12c | Franklin | Franklin 12c |
| * Morocco | 2,00 | King of Morocco | Moroc |
| + Zeropost | NP | Zeropost [4] | Zeropost |
| Canada | 8¢ | Queen Victoria | Vic 8c |
| Canada | 68¢ | Train | Engine 4 |
| ? | ? | Myth House | Myth X |
| ? Canada | $1 | Carshop Ruins | Ruins $1 |
| Canada | 32¢ | Train | Engine 6 |
| + Magel/Mesmer | ? | Anton Mesmer | Magel X |
| ? Canada | $2 | Ship and an Iceberg | Ice $2 |
| Canada | 32¢ | Train | Engine 5 |
| + Canada | 36¢ | Finding Franklin’s Relics | Relic 36¢ |
| Scotland | 16p | Edinburgh Mail Snowbound | Snowbound 16p |
| Great Britain | 31p | Vivian Leigh | Film 31p |
Like the house in John McDaid’s Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse and the monster’s body in Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl, McLaughlin uses images as navigational structures for the story. His stamps serve as artifacts of a bygone time when connections between people were slow and communication over distances and time could, easily, go cold. It should also be noted that McLaughlin uses lists as a conceit in the story much like Magel Constantine used them for his shows. The effect is no less mesmerizing. It also leads to the possibility that NTAZ, which McLaughlin calls 2019b bound book a “long prose poem,” chronicles legendary events, and features heroic and flawed characters, may be considered an epic.
Publication History
What is fascinating about this work is that it existed first as a print hypertext, developed into a Storyspace hypertext, and then later was re-envisioned as a print book. [5] Below are descriptions and some insights into the various print editions and digital versions.
“Notes toward Absolute Zero. Hypertext Fiction”
Among the archives in The Tim McLaughlin Collection are two copies of an unbound manuscript reminiscent of a hand-made book that perhaps may be considered a fair copy. McLaughlin reports that this was an early version created while living with friends in Ireland. Because access to the internet was at the time difficult for them, he had wanted to share the work with them in a format they could read. A local print shop cut his manuscript pages from the 8.5 x 11 stack he had produced into a finished size of 8.5 x 5.5 (McLaughlin, 18 Dec. 2019). Its cover is produced with a black construction paper and is hand-lettered in silver by McLaughlin. It reads: “Notes toward Absolute Zero. Hypertext Fiction.” A silver monogram is found below the subtitle. The title page is produced with vellum and contains the same information as found on the cover, save that it is printed, not hand-written, in a combination of serif and san serif black letters. The choice of paper used throughout the rest of the book is “Beckett Glazier Mist recycled paper,” a wicked nod perhaps to the story’s focus on the frozen landscapes of the Arctic and wintery Canada. The typeface, Goudy Old Style, reminds readers of a past time of travel by train and ship and communication through letters and personal journals. This version offers little paratext, such as a Frontispiece and Backispiece found in the Eastgate version (Version 2.1). Only three black and white images are used: the train station and a train outfitted with a snowplow also found in the Eastgate version and another featuring the train accident mentioned earlier in this version of the work. It does not offer chapters nor page numbers, though some of the pages are titled like hypertext lexias. Like the hypertext it states it is, the narrative is relayed in small chunks and the episodes shift in time, place, action, and characters.
Readers first come to chuck of text written in the 2nd person point of view by an omniscient narrator that introduces the story to readers. It reads:
This is a story that takes place in the space between movement. It begins when you realize that you can control your departure but not your arrival. If you find yourself somewhere else, perhaps gathered into the hypnotic sway of the sleeping car, it is because you have given up control over something. Travel is a conversation between places.
On the next page readers encounter Magel and Jerico, whose name varies in spelling than in the Eastgate version. [6] For the first seven pages the two engage in a conversation about Magel’s fear of dogs. The next two shift to a train wreck that took place on March 12, 1857 along the Great Western Railway en route to Hamilton in which 59 people perished. Four pages of quotes by Reb Alcé, Paul Virilio, The Canadian Encyclopedia, and b.p.nichol follow. Next are two pages that recount the conversation Winter and Jerico had in the hotel room about Magel’s fear of dogs and the injury he sustained in an accident a dog once caused him. The next page takes the story back to Magel and Jerico; he needs to tell her something. The episode ends without the readers––or her––knowing what that is. Next is a brief rumination about travel, before arriving at pages entitled Jerico I and Jerico II. The narrator appears again on the next two pages, the second a variation on the opening comment,
“This is a story that takes space and movement . . . . Travel is an argument between places.”
It is not until the second third of the novel that readers find mention of the Franklin expedition and McClintock’s journey to locate the ships and the crew. The story continues to move back and forth, in and out of episodes. The theme of miserable cold and what McLaughlin identifies as the “[t]he failure of communication, transits, and journeys” (McLaughlin 18 Dec 2019) holds the narrative together. At times the title of episodes provide seamless connections. An entry from “Winter’s Notebook, January 10” about the intense cold, for example, gives way on the next page to the spirited antics of William Parry’s crew on Melville Island in “Winter Chronicle,” followed by an entry dated “October 28––Midnight” from McClintock’s notebook recounting the sound of “ice crushing.”
It is important at this juncture to harken back to the early 1990s and the zeitgeist of the period in order to understand why McLaughlin called his print publication itself a hypertext.
The idea of hypertext and hypertextuality was in the air as McLaughlin long before McLaughlin began working on NTAZ. ACM Hypertext ‘87 convened at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, laying the groundwork for hypertext theory in North America. Present were Jay David Bolter and Michael Joyce who demonstrated the efficacy of Storyspace for non-linear storytelling, using Joyce’s afternoon: a story as a proof of concept. Also there was George Landow talking about the rhetoric of hypertext, and Ted Nelson gave an invited talk about Project Xanadu. By 1991 Bolter’s Writing Space: the Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing was released. Chapter seven “The New Dialogue” discusses the tension structure engenders with each new medium, focusing specifically on the rejection of linearity by postmodern theorists Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida (114-116). This book was followed in 1992 by Landow’s Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. The first page makes his argument clear: Hypertext is not limited to computers but is a structure that can be found in print texts. [7] More importantly, computer hypertext––that is, “text composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains, or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web, and path”¬¬––follows Roland Barthes’ concept of “an ideal textuality” (author’s emphasis, 3).
McLaughlin was well aware hypertext theory during this time. His project with Robin Parmar and Christopher Keep, The Electronic Labyrinth, begun in the early 1990s contains a page entitled “The Non-linear Tradition in Literature.” It cites “[m]any texts produced as printed books [that] anticipate the non-sequential narratives of hyperbooks” and includes Sterne’s Tristam Shandy, Robbe-Grillet’s In the Labyrinth, Nabokov’s Pale Fire, and others. It also names Joyce’s afternoon: a story along with other prominent hypertext e-lit works of the period. Its “Bibliography” lists ACM Hypertext’s “Hypertext on Hypertext, along with works by Barthes, Landow, Derrida, Foucault, Bolter, and of course Nelson.
Thus, McLaughlin’s 1993 Edition of NTAZ as a print hypertext fits into the constellation of thought of the period. It introduces an open-ended text that over its 16-year history changed titles; varied in emphasis; and experimented with presentation. It comes to reflect his notion of the “hyperbook”––that is, a text that is “decentred,” whose “boundaries” are “hard to determine,” an electronic book with hypertext features.”
1994 Edition. Untitled. Notes Cards of Hypertext
At first glance, the stack of 8.5 x 5.5 note cards appears to be The Eastgate Version printed on paper, for they resemble the lexias from that digital version. The lexia title appears at the top of each card, for example, with a small amount of text is chunked below it. Upon closer inspection, however, it is clear this is a unique edition, one that with slightly different content. It consists of 391 cards instead of the 440 nodes found in The Eastgate Version. Missing are the four nodes for introductory material and credit, the two nodes for the interfaces, and the 33 nodes for the postage stamps. Readers may think that if it is not actually a print copy of The Eastgate Version, then it could be the 1993 Edition re-presented as Storyspace lexias. This also is not the case. There are numerous textual variations in the lexias that set it apart from that version. Interestingly, it differs widely from the digital versions in production at the same time––Versions 1.02, 1.1a, 1.1b, and 1.2 in that they focused on the character Magel and were titled as such. What is interesting about the 1994 Edition is the way McLaughlin sought to organize the cards: He gave many of them inventory numbers categorized as either “FS” or “BS.” Though McLaughlin no longer remembers what the code for the numbers [8], it is clear that they do often follow default paths of The Eastgate Version. A complete list of the note cards can be found in Appendix 1.
Along with the print editions of the work, McLaughlin also donated to the ELO’s archives is a small box that once held brand new 3.5-inch floppy disks. Labeled “Magel’s Files,” the box now contains five disks titled “Magel’s Graphics” and two titled “Graphics.” These are predominantly .tif images––bitmap images of the ships and stamps––for what appears to be for NTAZ. All seven of these disks are formatted for the Windows platform. Another five disks, however, contain various versions of a work called “The Correspondence of Magel Constantine.” These are built with Storyspace for Apple computers and dated between 1993 and 1994––during the same time McLauglin was creating the print editions. One other, unlabeled but marked in gold lettering in McLaughlin’s hand is titled “Expanders” and contains software for compressing files.
Version 1.02
The floppy disk entitled “Magel Early Version” opens to a launcher icon called “Magel test v. 1.02.” This version of NTAZ produced in the summer of 1993 as a proof of concept, entitled “The Correspondence of Magel Constantine: A Philatelic Novella,” for the research project, "Hypertext Fiction and the Literary Artist,” by McLaughlin, Robin Parmar, and Christopher Keep constitutes the earliest digital version of the work. The project eventually evolved into “The Electronic Labyrinth” and later the “ELAB.” It was presented to the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Also contained on the disk are two raw Storyspace files, “mountain” and “Photos.” The Magel file contains 249 nodes and 341 links. When the work opens, readers are taken to an interface that notes that the work is “Test Version 1.02.” It is titled “The Correspondence of Magel Constantine: A Philatelic Novella.” The interface also offers “Instructions” and “Begin Reading” options. However, it also shows a Toolbar produced for a later version of Storyspace that does not contain the “H” or “Home.” The default path takes readers to a Frontispiece consisting of an interface of postage stamps, much like NTAZ. The 20¢ Queen Victoria, for example, appears at the top left hand side of the screen, but many other stamps are different from those found on the interface for NTAZ.
Version V 1.1
1.1a “Magel V1.01” is a corrected proof of “The Correspondence of Magel Constantine: A Philatelic Novella,” dated December 1993- September 1994. The work states that it is V 1.01 but the file is actually V.1.1.
1.1b “Magel 1.1” is a copy of the final version of “The Correspondence of Magel Constantine: A Philatelic Novella.” The disk is hand-lettered by the author in gold ink and dated December 1993- September 1994. The launcher icon, called “Magel,” differs from traditional Storyspace hypertexts in that it is shaped like a circle rather than the usual Storyspace styles. It consists of 282 nodes and 517 links, thus larger than V 1.02. It opens to an interface, entitled “Correspondence,” resembling an envelope. It reads: “The Correspondence of Magel Constantine: A Philatelic Novella.” On the top right is the return name, “Tim McLaughlin.” The top left features a Canadian stamp of Lady Jane Franklin, postmarked “Absolute Zero.” Readers can clink on one of two links that appear as boxes: “Instructions” and “Begin Reading” and are told to “Double Click.” They are also reminded they are reading Version 1.1. Clicking on the “Instructions” link takes readers to directions much like those for NTAZ. Also like NTAZ, this work is copyrighted 1993. To begin reading the work, readers can hit the return key. They are first taken to another envelop. Hitting the return key again takes them to the Frontispiece of stamps. Many of these stamps are the same as NTAZ but appear in different locations on the interface. Lady Jane Franklin’s, for example, appears in the middle of the bottom row in this version. Starting at the top at the 20¢ stamp featuring Queen Victoria entitled “Vic 20c,” readers are taken to a note called “Victoria.” This one note contains the two lexias of NTAZ called “Victoria” and “Victoria 2.” Hitting the return key to continue moving along the default path takes readers back to the Frontispiece rather than the five consecutive notes associated with “Resolute” and “Resolute 2” as in NTAZ. Other variations can be found in this version.
Version 1.2 Uncompiled Version 1994
According to McLaughlin, this is the version prepared for final publication with Eastgate Systems, Inc. With it, the project had returned to its roots with title Notes Toward Absolute Zero, the one he preferred.
Versions 2.0-4.0
These are the floppy disks and CD-ROM published by Eastgate Systems, Inc. V 2.1 produced for the Macintosh environment remains the authorative version. All were created with Storyspace 1.1.2a. The floppy disks for Apple and Windows computers were released in 1995. Though the publication date for Version 4.1, the CD-ROM, is listed in World Cat as both 1995 and 1997, Mark Bernstein reports that it was in 1996 that it was released (Bernstein, 18 Dec 2019), a date with which McLaughlin agrees.
The 2019 Edition. Notes Toward Absolute Zero: A Long Prose Poem
Twenty-three years after the publication of NTAZ on CD-ROM, McLaughlin produced a manuscript for another print edition of the work. Titled Notes Toward Absolute Zero: A Long Prose Poem, the work [more . . .]
Notes
[1] To access NTAZ for this essay, I used a Macintosh Performa 5215CD computer running System Software 7.6 and a copy of Version 2.1 of the work, that is––the 3.5-inch floppy disk for Macintosh computers.
[2] There is, for example, an 8¢ stamp featuring Lady Jane in the frontispiece. In reality, a stamp existed for her husband, John Franklin released in 1989. The real 8¢ U.S. Franklin stamp featured Benjamin Franklin and not Lady Jane Franklin.
[3] The Home option in the Toolbar was a feature available in the earliest Storyspace reader, the one mark Bernstein identifies as the “afternoon Reader” (Bernstein, 18 December 2019)
[4] This “stamp” is actually a work of art by Hungarian artist Endre Tót that uses the postage stamp as a medium.
[5] The author of this essay thanks McLaughlin for his donation of manuscripts to the Electronic Literature Organization’s archives; she also thanks the ELO for making them available to scholars.
[6] Jerico’s name is spelled differently in this version.
[7] He states: “When designers of computer software examine pages of Glas or Of Grammatology, they encounter a digitalized, hypertextual Derrida; and when literary theorists examine Literary Machines, they encounter a deconstructionist or poststructuralist Nelson” (2).
[8] As he wrote: “I believe I was trying to organize the pathways through the front and the back collages of stamps. I’ve never been really rigorous in my organizational strategies. I wonder if this (the lack of rigidity) is one of the aspects that was so appealing about hypertext. Thinking of it not in terms of what it enabled you to do, but rather what it permitted you to avoid doing. You didn’t have to commit to a narrative strategy. You could set that aside and deal with it with a lighter hand. You could - to a certain extent let the format (and the reader) determine the structure” (18 Dec. 2019).
Works Cited
Bernstein, Mark. “Anomalies.” Personal email. 18 Dec. 2019.
Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991.
Keep, Christopher, Tim McLaughlin, and Robin Parmer. The Electronic Labyrinth. 1993-2000. http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0056.html.
Kendall, Robert. “Parsing the Cold: McLaughlin’s Notes Toward Absolute Zero.” Word Circuits. 1998. http://www.wordcircuits.com/comment/htlit_4.htm.
Landow, George. Hypertext: The Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1992.
McLaughlin, Tim. “Magel’s Story.” Personal email. 18 Dec. 2019.
---. Notes Toward Absolute Zero. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems, Inc., 1995.
Appendix 1: The Complete Inventory of the Note Cards, the 1994 Edition
Note: N# signifies note cards that do not show an inventory number. These particular note cards are listed in the location left by the author. Comments in parentheses are mine.
BS1
BS 1 Elvis 29c
BS 2 Narrative (“I know there is intimacy in narrative.”)
BS 3 Cinema (the same notes as BS 13 N#)
BS1-4 Instead (Starts a Lexian sentence)
BS1-5 I
BS1-6 live
BS1-7 like
BS1-8 photography.
BS1-9 Static.
BS1-10 Arrested.
BS2
BS2-1 Eire 28p
BS2-2 Angel’s share
BS2-3 Angel’s share 2
BS2-4 Notebook
BS2-5 Dec 1st
BS2-6 Dec 5th
BS2-7 Dec 5th 2
BS2-8 Dec. 7th
BS2-9 Dec 7th 2
BS2-10 Jan 10th
N# Prayer II
N# Prayer III
N# Heaven
N# Avedon
BS3
BS3-1 Franklin 12c
N# Ontology
N# Magnetic North
N# Hypno BS3-2 Ruins
N# Magnetize
BS3-3 List: (“Six Failures of Love”)
BS3-4 1
BS3-5 2
BS3-6 3
BS3-7 4
BS3-8 5
BS3-9 6
BS4
BS4-1 Moroc
BS4-2 Badi
BS4-3 Badi 2
BS4-4 Badi 3
BS5
BS5-1 Vic 8c
BS5-2 Post Script
BS5-3 You
BS5-4 Will
BS5-5 Remember
BS5-6 Image of what looks like a moon and a landscape
N# Lists (hand-lettered card with N#)
BS6
BS6-1 Engine 4
BS6-2 Argument
BS6-3 Feb. 8th
BS6-4 Creosote
BS6-5 Hinton
BS6-6 Hinton 2
BS7
BS7-1 Myth X
BS7-2 Memory
BS7-3 Memory
BS7-4 Memory
BS7-5 Memory
BS7-6 Memory
BS7-7 Memory
BS7-8 Memory
BS7-9 Memory
BS7-10 Memory
BS7-11 Memory
BS7-12 Memory
BS7-13 Memory
BS7-14 Memory
BS7-15 Memory (“I am the postmark and the cancellation”)
BS7-16 Memory
BS7-17 Memory
BS8
BS8-1 Engine 6
BS8-2 Threshold
BS8-3 Departure
BS8-4 Departure 2
BS8-5 Departure 3
BS8-6 Departure 4
BS8-7 Departure 5
BS8-8 Departure 6
BS9
BS9-1 Magel X
BS9-2 Odd
BS9-3 Magel
BS9-4 Magel 2
BS9-5 Phobia exact same lexia as FS6-2
BS9-6 Phobia 2
BS9-7 Phobia 3
BS9-8 Remembrance
BS9-9 Remembrance 2
BS9-10 Remembrance 3
BS9-11 Dreams
BS9-12 Influence
BS9-13 Absent exact same lexia as FS6 N#
BS9-14 Absent 2
BS9-15 Winter listened
BS9-16 Neurosis
BS9-17 symbol for question mark
N# Attraction
N# symbol for star; same image as BS5-6 except the image is blown up a bit
BS10
BS10-1 Ice $2
BS10-2 Icebergs
BS10-3 Ice (list of types of ice)
BS10-4 Ice
BS10-5 Ice
BS10-6 Ice
BS10-7 Ice
BS10-8 Ice
BS10-9 Ice
BS10-10 Ice
BS10-11 Ice
BS10-12 Ice
BS10-13 Ice
BS10-14 Ice
BS10-15 Ice
BS10-16 Ice
BS10-17 Ice
BS10-18 Ice
BS10-19 Ice
BS10-20 Ice
BS10-21 Ice
BS10-22 Ice
BS10-23 Ice
BS11
BS11-2 Table
BS11-3 Hands
BS11-4 Hands 2
BS11-5 Hands 3
BS13
BS13-1 Snowbound 16p
BS13-2 Snowbound
BS13-3 Speech
BS13-4 Aporetic
BS13-5 Stranded
BS13-6 Photography
BS13-7 Photography 7
BS13-8 Script
BS13-9 Life (Here is the full line of the 7 cards’ titles spelled out)
BS13-10 Time
N# Cinema
N# Belief
BS13-11 symbol of some sort; exact same card as BS5-7
BS14
BS14-1 Film 31p
BS14-2 Snapshot 1
BS14-3 Snapshot 2
BS14-4 Snapshot 3
BS14-5 Photo
BS14-6 Photo
BS14 6-2 Photo
BS14 6-3 Photo
BS14 6-4 Photo
BS14 6-5 Photo
BS14 6-6 Photo
BS14 6-7 Photo
BS14 6-8 Photo
BS14 6-9 Photo
BS14 6-10 Photo
BS14 6-11 Photo
BS14 6-12 Photo
BS14 6-13, 14, 15, 16 Photo
BS16
BS16-1 Engine 5
FS1
FS1-1 Vic 20c
FS1-2 Victoria
FS1-3 Victoria 2
FS1-4 Resolute
FS1-5 Resolute 2
FS1-6 Resolute (Hand-lettered on the back of the card is: “Some setup to know about ships caught in the ice?”)
FS 2
FS2-1 Engine 2
FS2-2 Accidents (on the back of the card he wrote in hand: “The invention of love was the invention of heartbreak.”)
FS2-3 Radiant
FS2-4 Radiant
FS2-5 You
FS2-6 Take Two Trains (recreation of the train wreck)
FS2-7 Take 2 Trains
FS2-8 Take 2 trains
FS3
FS3-1 Vic 3c
FS3-2 warm Victoria
FS3-3 Your Trail N# Hand-Lettered card that reads: “Franklin Expedition” N# Hand-Lettered card that reads: “Train Wrecks.”
FS4
FS4-1 Engine 1
FS4-2 Miracle
FS4-3 1857
FS4-4 1857
FS4-5 1857 FS5
FS5
FS5-1 Greenwich
FS5-2 Time
FS5-3 Time
FS5-4 Time
FS5-5 Time
FS5-6 Time
FS5-7 Time
FS5-8 Time
N# Distance
FS6
FS6-1 Dog 37c
FS6-2 Phobia
N# Influence
N# Jericho 1
N# Jericho 2
N# Summer
N# Icon
N# outside
N# Absent
FS6-3 Secret
FS6-4 Turns
FS6-5 Order
FS6-6 Typewriter
FS6-7 Cut and Paste
FS6-8 Tale
FS6-9 Panic
FS6-10 Terror
N# 1784
N# symbol for null; same image a BS5-6 except the image is blown up a bit
FS7
FS7-1 Eire 38p
FS7-2 Ghost
FS7-3 Ghost 2
FS7-4 Ismay
FS7-5 Ismay 2
FS7-6 Costello
FS7-7 Costello 2
FS7-8 Costello 3
FS7-9 Costello 4
FS7-10 Costello 5
FS7-11 Costello 6
FS7-12 Costello 7
FS7-13 Costello 8
N# Propositions
N# Proposition
N# Proposition
N# Proposition
N# Proposition
N# Proposition
N# Proposition
N# Proposition
N# Franklin
N# Franklin Two
FS8
FS8-1 Train 4c
FS8-2 Platform
FS8-3 Spill
FS8-4 Spill
FS8-5 Searching
FS8-6 Salvation
FS8-7 Salvation 1
FS8-8 Salvation 2
FS8-9 Salvation 3
FS8-10 Salvation 4
FS8-11 Salvation 5
FS8-12 Salvation 6
N# Night Train
N# Tomorrow
N# Crypt
N# Sunday
N# Jericho II
N# Bones
N# Morning
N# Walking
N# Ending
N# Hiding
N# Governor
N# Last Spike
N# F.
N# Prayer 2
N# X-ray specs
N# An Atlas Body
N# Prayer 1 FS9
FS9
FS9-1 Vic 2c
FS9-2 Gift N# Wrought
FS9-3 Winter
FS9-4 Recognition (story of when Winter and Jericho meet)
FS9-5 Sleep
FS9-6 Sleep 2
FS9-7 Sleep 3
FS9-8 Sleep 4
FS9-9 Sleep 5 [there are two sets of FS-5-9 named differently; below are those from part 1]
FS9-5 Entrance
FS9-6 English
FS9-7 Bored
FS9-8 Answer
FS9-9 I Return
N# Home
FS9-10 Wreath
FS10
FS10-1 Swim 8c
FS10-2 Stamp
FS10-3 Stamp
FS10-4 Stamp
FS10-5 Stamp
FS10-6 The Waves
FS10-7 symbol of some sort; exact same card as BS5-7
N# Conclusion (one card, no inventory penciled on the back, it is about the suitcase full envelops with stamps)
N# Conclusion (one card, no inventory penciled on the back)
N# Conclusion (one card, no inventory penciled on the back)
N# page
FS11
FS11-1 Beaver
FS11-2 Strict
FS11-3 False Beginning
FS11-4 False Beginning
FS11-5 Arrival
FS11-6 Arrival
FS11-7 Shadow
FS11-8 Shadow
FS11-9 Same card as BS5-6
N# Arbus
FS12
FS12-2 Out Beyond (1 is scratched out and replaced with 2)
FS12-3 Field
FS12-4 Cold
N# Insomnia
N# Insomnia 2
N# Prayer I
FS12-10 Just like BS5-6
N# Retention
N# Myth
N# Imagination
N# Zoeistic Mag
N# infinity symbol
N# Hypnosis
FS13
FS13-1 Ship $5
FS13-2 Winter Chronicle
FS13-3 I
FS13-4 1830
FS13-5 I (same as 3)
FS13-6 1850
N# Dust
N# Passing
N# 1858
N# 1923
N# 1931
N# Journal
FS13-8 Stanley
FS14
FS14-1 Plow 34c
FS14-2 Conceptual Engine
FS14-3 Delta symbol
N# Connect
FS14-7 Forecast
FS15
FS15-1 Engine3
FS15-2 Conversation (this is the opening card of the Unbound Version)
FS15-3 GWR
FS15-4 GWR two
FS16
FS16-1 Station $2
FS16-2 The Station
FS16-3 Skin
FS16-4 Jericho
FS16-5 Later
FS16-6 Knock
FS16-7 Knock 2
FS16-8 Radio
FS16-9 Winter
FS16-10 Tundra
N# Recall
N# Platform
FS16-11 City 1
FS16-12 City 2
FS16-13 City 3
FS16-14 City 4
FS17
FS17-1 L. Franklin 8c
FS17-2 Portrait
FS17-3 L. Franklin
FS17-4 Searchers
FS17-5 catalog
FS17-6 List: The Boat (The list of items found in the wreckage)
FS17-7 The Boat: one
FS17-8 The Boat: Two
FS17-9 The Boat: Three
FS17-10 The Boat: Four
FS17-11 The Boat: Five
FS17-12 The Boat: Six
FS 17-13 The Boat: Seven
FS17-14 The Boat: Eight
FS17-15 The Boat: Nine (“two human skeletons”)
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light
N# Light