Fancies and Goodnights

By: John Collier

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Paperback | 31 May 2003 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
440 Pages

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Dimensions(cm)
20.2 x 12.6 x 2.9

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John Collier's edgy, sardonic tales are works of rare wit, curious insight, and scary implication. They stand out as one of the pinnacles in the critically neglected but perennially popular tradition of weird writing that includes E.T.A. Hoffmann and Charles Dickens as well as more recent masters like Jorge Luis Borges and Roald Dahl. With a cast of characters that ranges from man-eating flora to disgruntled devils and suburban salarymen (not that it's always easy to tell one from another), Collier's dazzling stories explore the implacable logic of lunacy, revealing a surreal landscape whose unstable surface is depth-charged with surprise.

Industry Reviews

Intense like poems, compressed like epigrams, short stories have always inclined to the lyrical and biting. No story writer ever bit more sharply or wrote more gracefully than John Collier. When I first encountered his work, twenty-five years ago, I was shocked by his plots and delighted by his cruelty; now I take my delight in the dark silky stuff of his prose style, and the shock lies in his faultless execution and in his mastery of craft. If you don't know his work, you owe yourself the pleasure--the indispensable pleasure--of Collier.
-- Michael Chabon

Here is a world of moonshine and madness, of suburbia invaded by fiends and angels, of magic spells, grotesque melodrama and lunatic farce, surprising, ludicrous, terrifying.
-- The New York Times

In this collection, Collier uses clever, evocative prose to tell dozens of brief tales that vault off at peculiar, fantastical angles with often startlingly--and amusingly--cruel conclusions....At his best it is a mystery how he fell from attention. Erased from history for half a century like a character in one of his stories, Collier deserves rediscovery.
-- Rob Haynes, Time Out (London)

Preponderantly from the New Yorker, these haunted lullabies and sanguine whimsies which range from the civilized horror of Saki to extravagant parody, display an affectionate familiarity with evil, sharpen drama with irony.
-- Kirkus Reviews

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Introduction	p. vii
Bottle Party	p. 1
De Mortuis	p. 9
Evening Primrose	p. 16
Witchs Money	p. 28
Are you too Late or was I too Early	p. 40
Fallen Star	p. 44
The Touch of Nutmeg Makes it	p. 56
Three Bears Cottage	p. 64
Pictures in the Fire	p. 70
Wet Saturday	p. 84
Squirrels have Bright Eyes	p. 91
Halfway to Hell	p. 97
The Lady on the Grey	p. 104
Incident on a Lake	p. 112
Over Insurance	p. 118
Old Acquaintance	p. 124
The Frog Prince	p. 132
Season of Mists	p. 138
Great Possibilities	p. 146
Without Benefit of Galsworthy	p. 154
The Devil George and Rosie	p. 159
Ah the University	p. 178
Back for Christmas	p. 182
Another American Tragedy	p. 188
Collaboration	p. 195
Midnight Blue	p. 202
Gavin O Leary	p. 208
If Youth Knew if Age Could	p. 217
Thus I Refute Beelzy	p. 228
Special Delivery	p. 233
Rope Enough	p. 249
Little Memento	p. 255
Green Thoughts	p. 260
Romance Lingers Adventure Lives	p. 275
Bird of Prey	p. 279
Variation on a Theme	p. 287
Night Youth Paris and the Moon	p. 299
The Steel Cat	p. 304
Sleeping Beauty	p. 311
Interpretation of a Dream	p. 327
Mary	p. 333
Hell Hath no Fury	p. 346
In the Cards	p. 352
The Invisible dove Dancer of Strathpheen Island	p. 358
The Right Side	p. 365
Spring Fever	p. 370
Youth from Vienna	p. 378
Possession of Angela Bradshaw	p. 398
Cancel all I said	p. 403
The Chaser	p. 415
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Fancies and Goodnights

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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