Editing Lest Darkness Fall (section)

==Related works==
Subsequent to ''Lest Darkness Fall'', de Camp wrote two subsequent works with similar themes: "[[The Wheels of If]]" (1940) and "[[Aristotle and the Gun]]" (1958).

Direct responses to ''Lest Darkness Fall'' include the stories "[[Day Million|The Deadly Mission of Phineas Snodgrass]]" (1962) by [[Frederik Pohl]],<ref>''[[Lest Darkness Fall and Related Stories]]'' (Arc Manor, 2011) - publisher's blurb.</ref> and "[[The Man Who Came Early]]" (1956) by [[Poul Anderson]].<ref>[https://www.sfsite.com/06a/bt153.htm Silver, Steven H. "''The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time'', edited by Barry M. Malzberg" (2003 review)].</ref> In the Pohl tale, a man travels back to 1 BC and teaches modern medicine, causing a population explosion. It ends with the fantastically overpopulated alternate timeline sending someone back to assassinate the title character, allowing darkness to fall for thankful billions. It was reprinted in the anthologies ''[[The Enchanter Completed: A Tribute Anthology for L. Sprague de Camp|The Enchanter Completed]]'' (2005) and ''[[Lest Darkness Fall and Related Stories]]'' (2011). The Anderson piece is a tale of an American airman sent by a storm (like Padway) to [[Saga Age]] [[Iceland]]; in this instance, the outcome proves tragic due to cultural misunderstandings and a poor fit between the protagonist's attempted innovations and local needs.

Another story inspired by ''Lest Darkness Fall'' is "To Bring The Light", by [[David Drake]], published together with the original in the 1996 [[Baen Books|Baen]] double ''[[Lest Darkness Fall and To Bring The Light]]'' and the 2011 anthology ''[[Lest Darkness Fall and Related Stories]]''. This story features Flavia Herosilla, a well-educated woman living in ancient Rome at its height. Like Padway, she is sent back in time by a lightning strike, in her case to the era of Rome's beginnings around 751 BC. Unlike Padway, who tries to change history, Flavia tries to recreate the founding of Rome based on the legends that she knows. But there is one detail she does want to change. The legends tell that on the day of Rome's founding, [[Romulus]] killed his brother [[Remus]] - and while in the process of making sure that Rome will be founded, Flavia Herosilla had fallen in love with Remus.

Several editions of ''Lest Darkness Fall'', including the one printed with "To Bring the Light", repeat an error in the sequence where Padway and Julia from Apulia are setting up their one night stand: in the original text a somewhat inebriated Padway says Julia's dirty feet form a barrier and "I must lave the pedal extremities...".  Apparently some editor failed to recognize "lave" as a synonym for "wash" and turned the word into "have".