essentialsaltes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
essentialsaltes) wrote2011-04-27 02:05 pm
essentialsaltes) wrote2011-04-27 02:05 pm
Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination, ed. Philip Van Doren Stern
A pretty neat anthology of fantasy/spooky stories from the early 1940s [my cheapo garage sale find is the 1954 Cardinal reprint], edited by Philip Van Doren Stern, who wrote the story that was eventually filmed as It's a Wonderful Life.
Being a pretty early anthology, it has an interesting mix, including both the obvious genre luminaries (Wells, Poe, Dunsany) and more mainstream authors - EM Forster, O Henry, and a surprising (if not very good) story by F Scott Fitzgerald.
Highlights (tough in a group of mostly excellent stories):
Max Beerbohm's "Enoch Soames"
Wells' "The Man Who Could Work Miracles"
Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Bottle Imp"
Ralph Straus' "The Most Maddening Story in the World" [a better English club story than the Dunsany, despite its all too accurate title]
Being a pretty early anthology, it has an interesting mix, including both the obvious genre luminaries (Wells, Poe, Dunsany) and more mainstream authors - EM Forster, O Henry, and a surprising (if not very good) story by F Scott Fitzgerald.
Highlights (tough in a group of mostly excellent stories):
Max Beerbohm's "Enoch Soames"
Wells' "The Man Who Could Work Miracles"
Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Bottle Imp"
Ralph Straus' "The Most Maddening Story in the World" [a better English club story than the Dunsany, despite its all too accurate title]