The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by Vandermeer, Ann; Vandermeer, Jeff

• ISBN13: 9780525435563
• ISBN10: 0525435565
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780525435570
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2019-07-02
• Publisher: Vintage
• More Book Details

Summary

A FINALIST FOR THE 2020 WORLD FANTASY AWARD • Unearth the enchanting origins of fantasy fiction with a collection of tales as vast as the tallest tower and as mysterious as the dark depths of the forest.

Fantasy stories have always been with us. They illuminate the odd and the uncanny, the wondrous and the fantastic: all the things we know are lurking just out of sight—on the other side of the looking-glass, beyond the music of the impossibly haunting violin, through the twisted trees of the ancient woods. Other worlds, talking animals, fairies, goblins, demons, tricksters, and mystics: these are the elements that populate a rich literary tradition that spans the globe. A work composed both of careful scholarship and fantastic fun, The Big Book of Classic Fantasy is essential reading for anyone who’s never forgotten the stories that first inspired feelings of astonishment and wonder.

INCLUDING:

*Stories by pillars of the genre like the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Mary Shelley, Christina Rossetti, L. Frank Baum, Robert E. Howard, and J. R. R. Tolkien
*Fantastical offerings from literary giants including Edith Wharton, Leo Tolstoy, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Vladimir Nabokov, Hermann Hesse, and W.E.B. Du Bois
*Rare treasures from Asian, Eastern European, Scandinavian, and Native American traditions
*New translations, including fourteen stories never before in English

PLUS:

*Beautifully Bizarre Creatures! *Strange New Worlds Just Beyond the Garden Path!
*Fairy Folk and Their Dark Mischief! *Seriously Be Careful—Do Not Trust Those Fairies!

Author Biography

ANN VANDERMEER currently serves as an acquiring editor for Tor.com and Weird Fiction Review and is the editor-in-residence for Shared Worlds. She was the editor-in-chief for Weird Tales for five years, work for which she won a Hugo Award. She also has won a World Fantasy Award and a British Fantasy Award for coediting The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories.

JEFF VANDERMEER is the New York Times bestselling author of the Southern Reach trilogy, the first novel of which, Annihilation, won the Shirley Jackson Award and was made into a film by Paramount Pictures. His recent novel Borne has been selected for the NEA Big Reads program and was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
 
THE QUEEN’S SON
Bettina von Arnim
 
HANS-MY-HEDGEHOG
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
 
THE STORY OF THE HARD NUT
E. T. A. Hoffmann
 
RIP VAN WINKLE
Washington Irving
 
THE LUCK OF THE BEAN-ROWS
Charles Nodier
 
TRANSFORMATION
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
 
THE NEST OF NIGHTINGALES
Théophile Gautier
 
THE FAIRYTALE ABOUT A DEAD BODY, BELONGING TO NO ONE KNOWS WHOM
Vladimir Odoevsky
 
THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON
Charles Dickens
 
THE NOSE
Nikolai Gogol
 
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR
Edgar Allan Poe
 
THE STORY OF JEON UNCHI
Anonymous
 
FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND
Nathaniel Hawthorne
 
MASTER ZACHARIUS
Jules Verne
 
THE FROST-KING: OR, THE POWER OF LOVE
Louisa May Alcott
 
THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS
Herman Melville
 
THE MAGIC MIRROR
George MacDonald
 
THE DIAMOND LENS
Fitz-James O’Brien
 
GOBLIN MARKET
Christina Rossetti
 
THE WILL-O’-THE-WISPS ARE IN TOWN
Hans Christian Andersen
 
THE LEGEND OF THE PALE MAIDEN
Aleksis Kivi
 
LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE
Lewis Carroll
 
FURNICA, OR THE QUEEN OF THE ANTS
Carmen Sylva
 
THE STORY OF IVÁN THE FOOL
Leo Tolstoy
 
THE GOOPHERED GRAPEVINE
Charles W. Chestnutt
 
THE BEE-MAN OF ORN
Frank R. Stockton
 
THE REMARKABLE ROCKET
Oscar Wilde
 
THE ENSOULED VIOLIN
H. P. Blavatskaya
 
THE DEATH OF ODJIGH
Marcel Schwob
 
THE TERRESTRIAL FIRE
Marcel Schwob
 
THE KINGDOM OF CARDS
Rabindranath Tagore
 
THE OTHER SIDE: A BRETON LEGEND
Count Eric Stanlislaus Stenbock
 
THE FULNESS OF LIFE
Edith Wharton
 
PRINCE ALBERIC AND THE SNAKE LADY
Vernon Lee
 
THE LITTLE ROOM
Madeline Yale Wynne
 
THE PLATTNER STORY
H. G. Wells
 
THE PRINCESS BALADINA—HER ADVENTURE
Willa Cather
 
THE RELUCTANT DRAGON
Kenneth Grahame
 
IKTOMI TALES
Zitkala-Ša
 
MARIONETTES
Louis Fréchette
 
DANCE OF THE COMETS: AN ASTRAL PANTOMIME IN TWO ACTS
Paul Scheerbart
 
THE WHITE PEOPLE
Arthur Machen
 
BLAMOL
Gustav Meyrink
 
GOBLINS: A LOGGING CAMP STORY
Louis Fréchette
 
SOWBREAD
Grazia Deledda
 
THE ANGRY STREET
G. K. Chesterton
 
THE AUNT AND AMABEL
E. Nesbit
 
SACRIFICE
Aleksey Remizov
 
THE PRINCESS STEEL
W. E. B. Du Bois
 
THE HUMP
Fernán Caballero
 
THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS
E. M. Forster
 
THE LEGEND OF THE ICE BABIES
E. Pauline Johnson
 
THE LAST REDOUBT
William Hope Hodgson
 
JACK PUMPKINHEAD AND THE SAWHORSE
L. Frank Baum
 
THE PLANT MEN
Edgar Rice Burroughs
 
STRANGE NEWS FROM ANOTHER STAR
Hermann Hesse
 
THE METAMORPHOSIS
Franz Kafka
 
THE HOARD OF THE GIBBELINS
Lord Dunsany
 
THROUGH THE DRAGON GLASS
A. Merritt
 
DAVID BLAIZE AND THE BLUE DOOR
E. F. Benson
 
THE BIG BESTIARY OF MODERN LITERATURE
Franz Blei
 
THE ALLIGATOR WAR
Horacio Quiroga
 
FRIEND ISLAND
Francis Stevens
 
MAGIC COMES TO A COMMITTEE
Stella Benson
 
GRAMOPHONE OF THE AGES
Yefim Zozulya
 
JOIWIND
David Lindsay
 
SOUND IN THE MOUNTAIN
Maurice Renard
 
SENNIN
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
 
KOSHTRA PIVRARCHA
E. R. Eddison
 
AT THE BORDER
Der Nister
 
THE MARVELOUS EXPLOITS OF PAUL BUNYAN
W. B. Laughead
 
TALKATIVE DOMOVOI
Aleksandr Grin
 
THE RATCATCHER
Aleksandr Grin
 
THE SHADOW KINGDOM
Robert E. Howard
 
THE MAN TRAVELING WITH THE BROCADE PORTRAIT
Edogawa Ranpo
 
A VISIT TO THE MUSEUM
Vladimir Nabokov
 
THE WATER SPRITE’S TALE
Karel Čapek
 
THE CAPITAL OF CAT COUNTRY
Lao She
 
COYOTE STORIES
Mourning Dove
 
UNCLE MONDAY
Zora Neale Hurston
 
ROSE-COLD, MOON SKATER
María Teresa León
 
A NIGHT OF THE HIGH SEASON
Bruno Schulz
 
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SUN
Fernand Dumont
 
THE TOWN OF CATS
Hagiwara Sakutarō
 
THE DEBUTANTE
Leonora Carrington
 
THE JEWELS IN THE FOREST
Fritz Leiber
 
EVENING PRIMROSE
John Collier
 
THE COMING OF THE WHITE WORM
Clark Ashton Smith
 
THE MAN WHO COULD WALK THROUGH WALLS
Marcel Aymé
 
LEAF BY NIGGLE
J. R. R. Tolkien
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS