Frank Herbert, who wrote Dune, around 1969. Photo George Westbeau, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. No free image of the novel's own cover art exists.
Dune (Frank Herbert)
What it took directly
- documentedDune (1965 novel) took from a 1957 newspaper assignment on a government sand-dune control project at Florence, Oregon"The perfect scene came to him in 1957, after a newspaper assignment took him to Florence, Oregon, to write a feature story about a government project on the control of sand dunes." Tim O'Reilly, Frank Herbert (Frederick Ungar, 1981), chapter 3
- statedArrakis (Dune's desert planet) took from the file folders of sand-dune and desert research Herbert built up"I finally saw that I had something enormously interesting going for me about the ecology of deserts, and it was, for a science fiction writer anyway, it was an easy step from that to think: What if I had an entire planet that was a desert?" Frank Herbert, interviewed by Willis E. McNelly at his home in Fairfax, California, 3 February 1969
- documentedDune (1965 novel) took from T. E. Lawrence (an early draft's hero was very like Lawrence of Arabia)"It was a story about a hero very like Lawrence of Arabia, an outsider who went native and used religious fervor to fuel his own ambitions" Tim O'Reilly, Frank Herbert (Frederick Ungar, 1981), chapter 3
- documentedDune (1965 book edition) comes from Chilton Books, a publisher best known for auto-repair manuals, after 23 editors turned the manuscript down"After 23 editors rejected the ungainly manuscript, Chilton Books, best known for its auto-repair manuals, gave it a small print run." Daniel Immerwahr, historian, “Heresies of Dune”, Los Angeles Review of Books, November 19, 2020
What it learned to do
- statedDune (1965 novel) learned from the musical fugue (one theme played many ways)"Enter the fugue. In music, the fugue is usually based on a single theme that is played many different ways." Frank Herbert, “Dune Genesis”, Omni, July 1980 (reprinted at frankherbert.org)
- statedDune (1965 novel) learned from more than two hundred books of background reading"I did read over two hundred books as background for this novel" Frank Herbert, interviewed by Willis E. McNelly at his home in Fairfax, California, 3 February 1969
- documentedFrank Herbert (while writing Dune) learned from Howard Hansen, his closest friend, who grew up on the Quileute reservation"Hansen passed Herbert readings on ecology, and in 1958, he began writing an account of what logging had done to his home, the Quileute reservation." Daniel Immerwahr, historian, “Heresies of Dune”, Los Angeles Review of Books, November 19, 2020
The tradition it sits in
- statedThe Fremen (Dune's desert people) comes from the desert cultures Herbert studied: the Arabian, the Navajo and the Kalahari"in studying sand dunes, you immediately get into not just the Arabian mystique but the Navaho mystique and the mystique of the Kalahari primitives and all" Frank Herbert, interviewed by Willis E. McNelly at his home in Fairfax, California, 3 February 1969
- inferredThe Fremen (Dune's desert people) comes from the Quileute and Hoh peoples of Western Washington, whom Herbert knew"The Fremen, living in the dangerous desert and harpooning enormous sandworms there, are not so far off from the Quileute and Hoh people who thrived in the forests of Western Washington and harpooned whales off the Pacific Coast." inferred — historian Daniel Immerwahr (LARB, 2020) draws the parallel, saying the Fremen are “not so far off” from them; he does not quote Herbert saying so, and Herbert's own 1969 list of desert cultures does not name them
- statedDune (1965 novel) comes from the desert religions (Herbert set out to put deserts and religion together)"During my studies of deserts, of course, and previous studies of religions, we all know that many religions began in a desert atmosphere, so I decided to put the two together" Frank Herbert, interviewed by Willis E. McNelly at his home in Fairfax, California, 3 February 1969
- statedHouse Atreides (Dune) comes from Agamemnon's family in Greek tragedy"I wanted a sense of monumental aristocracy, but with tragedy hanging over them—and in our culture, Agamemnon personifies that." Frank Herbert, quoted by Tim O'Reilly in Frank Herbert (Frederick Ungar, 1981)
Where the whole form comes from
- statedDune (1965 novel) comes from Herbert's concern with ecology, which the US Department of Agriculture dune project at Florence, Oregon fed"the Florence project fed my interest in how we inflict ourselves upon our planet." Frank Herbert, “Dune Genesis”, Omni, July 1980 (reprinted at frankherbert.org)
- statedDune (1965 novel) comes from Herbert's theory that superheroes are disastrous for humankind"This grows from my theory that superheroes are disastrous for humankind." Frank Herbert, “Dune Genesis”, Omni, July 1980 (reprinted at frankherbert.org)
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