Best of
Short-Stories

1984

A Piece of Mine: Stories


J. California Cooper - 1984
    Back in print after more than five years, this is the extraordinary first short story collection by the author of Family.

The Short Stories


Ernest Hemingway - 1984
    The Short Stories, introduced here with a revealing preface by the author, chronicles Hemingway's development as a writer, from his earliest attempts in the chapbook Three Stories and Ten Poems, published in Paris in 1923, to his more mature accomplishments in Winner Take Nothing. Originally published in 1938 along with The Fifth Column, this collection premiered "The Capital of the World" and "Old Man at the Bridge," which derive from Hemingway's experiences in Spain, as well as "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," which figure among the finest of Hemingway's short fictions.

Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three


Clive Barker - 1984
    For those who already know these tales, the poignant introduction is a window on the creator's mind. Reflecting back after 14 years, Barker writes: I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present. Reading these stories over, I feel a little of both. Some of the simple energies that made these words flow through my pen--that made the phrases felicitous and the ideas sing--have gone. I lost their maker a long time ago. These enthusiastic tales are not ashamed of visceral horror, of blood splashing freely across the page: "The Midnight Meat Train," a grisly subway tale that surprises you with one twist after another; "The Yattering and Jack," about a hilarious demon who possesses a Christmas turkey; "In the Hills, the Cities," an unusual example of an original horror premise; "Dread," a harrowing non-supernatural tale about being forced to realize your worst nightmare; "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament," about a woman who kills men with her mind. Some of the tales are more successful than others, but all are distinguished by strikingly beautiful images of evil and destruction. No horror library is complete without them. --Fiona Webster

The Nightmare Factory


Thomas Ligotti - 1984
    This new edition brings together his collected short stories with 'Teatro Grottesco', a sequence of new stories not published before.Contents:The Frolic (1982)Les Fleurs (1981)Alice's Last Adventure (1985)Dream of a Mannikin (1982)The Chymist (1981)Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes (1982)Eye of the Lynx (1983)The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise (1996)The Lost Art of Twilight (1986)The Troubles of Dr. Thoss (1985)Masquerade of a Dead Sword (1986)Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech (1983)Dr. Locrian's Asylum (1987)The Sect of the Idiot (1988)The Greater Festival of Masks (1985)The Music of the Moon (1987)The Journal of J. P. Drapeau (1987)Vastarien (1987)The Last Feast of Harlequin (1990)The Spectacles in the Drawer (1987)Flowers of the Abyss (1991)Nethescurial (1991)The Dreaming in Nortown (1991)The Mystics of Muelenburg (1987)In the Shadow of Another World (1991)The Cocoons (1991)The Night School (1991)The Glamour (1991)The Library of Byzantium (1991)Miss Plarr (1991)The Shadow at the Bottom of the World (1990)The Medusa (1991)Conversations in a Dead Language (1989)The Prodigy of Dreams (1986)Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel (1991)The Tsalal (1994)Mad Night of Atonement (1989)The Strange Design of Master Rignolo (1989)The Voice in the Bones (1989)Teatro Grottesco (1996)Severini (1996)Gas Station Carnivals (1996)The Bungalow House (1995)The Clown Puppet (1996)The Red Tower (1996)

The Complete Short Stories


Ambrose Bierce - 1984
    Brought together in this volume, these stories represent an unprecedented accomplishment in American literature. In their iconoclasm and needle-sharp irony, their formal and thematic ingenuity and element of surprise, they differ markedly from the fiction admired in Bierce's time. Readers familiar with the classic An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge will want to turn to Bierce's other Civil War stories. Also included here are his horror stories, among them The Death of Halpin Frayser and The Damned Thing, and such tall tales as Oil of Dog and A Cargo of Cat.

Bloodchild


Octavia E. Butler - 1984
    Butler’s shattering meditation on symbiosis, love, power and tough choices. It won the Hugo, Locus, Nebula and Science Fiction Chronicle awards and is widely regarded as one of her greatest works.Years ago, a group known as the Terrans left Earth in search of a life free of persecution. Now they live alongside the Tlic, an alien race who face extinction; their only chance of survival is to plant their larvae inside the bodies of the humans.When Gan, a young boy, is chosen as a carrier of Tlic eggs, he faces an impossible dilemma: can he really help the species he has grown up with, even if it means sacrificing his own life?Perfect for fans of the thrilling Arrival and the works of Ursula Le Guin.

Books of Blood: Volumes 1-6


Clive Barker - 1984
    For those who already know these tales, the poignant introduction is a window on the creator's mind. Reflecting back after 14 years, Barker writes: I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present. Reading these stories over, I feel a little of both. Some of the simple energies that made these words flow through my pen--that made the phrases felicitous and the ideas sing--have gone. I lost their maker a long time ago. These enthusiastic tales are not ashamed of visceral horror, of blood splashing freely across the page: "The Midnight Meat Train," a grisly subway tale that surprises you with one twist after another; "The Yattering and Jack," about a hilarious demon who possesses a Christmas turkey; "In the Hills, the Cities," an unusual example of an original horror premise; "Dread," a harrowing non-supernatural tale about being forced to realize your worst nightmare; "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament," about a woman who kills men with her mind. Some of the tales are more successful than others, but all are distinguished by strikingly beautiful images of evil and destruction. No horror library is complete without them. --Fiona Webster

Black Water: The Book of Fantastic Literature


Alberto ManguelPedro Antonio de Alarcón - 1984
    Alberto Manguel has selected 72 fantastic tales from life on the edge of the twilight zone, with stories from Marguerite Yourcenar, Herman Hesse, Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov, and many, many more. This is a collection of irresistible masterpieces, many of which have never before appeared in the English language.Fantastic literature Manguel writes in his introduction, makes use of our everyday world as a facade through which the undefinable appears, hinting at the half-forgotten dreams of our imagination. Unlike tales of fantasy, fantastic literature deals with what can be best defined as the impossible seeping into the possible, what Wallace Stevens calls black water breaking into reality. Fantastic literature never really explains everything, it thrives on surprise, on the unexpected logic that is born from its own rules.Contents:House taken over by Julio CortázarHow love came to Professor Guildea by Robert S. HichensClimax for a ghost story by I.A. IrelandThe mysteries of the Joy Rio by Tennessee WilliamsPomegranate seed by Edith WhartonVenetian masks by Adolfo Bioy CasaresThe wish house by Rudyard KiplingThe playground by Ray BradburyImportance by Manuel Mujica LáinezEnoch Soames by Max BeerbohmA visitor from down under by L.P. HartleyLaura by SakiAn injustice revealedA little place off the Edgware Road by Graham GreeneFrom "A School Story" by M.R. JamesThe signalman by Charles DickensThe tall woman by Pedro Antonio de AlarcónA scent of mimosa by Francis KingDeath and the gardener by Jean CocteauLord Mountdrago by W. Somerset MaughamThe sick gentleman's last visit by Giovanni PapiniInsomnia by Virgilio PiñeraThe storm by Jules VerneA dream (from The Arabian Nights Entertainments)The facts in the case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan PoeSplit second by Daphne du MaurierAugust 25, 1983 by Jorge Luis BorgesHow Wang-Fo was saved by Marguerite YourcenarFrom "Peter and Rosa" by Isak DinesenTattoo by Jun'ichirō TanizakiJohn Duffy's brother by Flann O'BrienLady into fox by David GarnettFather's last escape by Bruno SchulzA man by the name of Ziegler by Hermann HesseThe Argentine ant by Italo CalvinoThe lady on the grey by John CollierThe queen of spades by Alexander PushkinOf a promise kept by Lafcadio HearnThe wizard postponed by Juan ManuelThe monkey's paw by W.W. JacobsThe bottle imp by Robert Louis StevensonThe rocking-horse winner by D.H. LawrenceCertain distant suns by Joanne GreenburgThe third bank of the river by João Guimarães RosaHome by Hilaire BellocThe door in the wall by H.G. WellsThe friends by Silvina OcampoEt in sempiternum pereant by Charles WilliamsThe captives of Longjumeau by Léon BloyThe visit to the museum by Vladimir NabakovAutumn Mountain by Ryūnosuke AkutagawaThe sight by Brian MooreClorinda by André Pieyre de MandiarguesThe pagan rabbi by Cynthia OzickThe fisherman and his soul by Oscar WildeThe bureau d'echange de maux by Lord DunsanyThe ones who walk away from Omelas by Ursula K. LeGuinIn the penal colony by Franz KafkaA dog in Durer's etching "The Knight, Death and the Devil" by Marco DeneviThe large ant by Howard FastThe lemmings by Alex ComfortThe grey ones by J.B. PriestleyThe feather pillow by Horacio QuirogaSeaton's aunt by Walter de la MareThe friends of the friends by Henry JamesThe travelling companion by Hans Christian AndersenThe curfew tolls by Stephen Vincent BenetThe state of grace by Marcel AyméThe story of a panic by E.M. ForsterAn invitation to the hunt by George HitchcockFrom the "American Notebooks" by Nathaniel HawthorneThe dream by O. Henry

Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories


Ghassan Kanafani - 1984
    Each involves a child, a victim of circumstances, who nevertheless participates in the struggle towards a better future. As in Kanafani's other fiction, these stories explore the need to recover the past by action.

Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories


Ellen Gilchrist - 1984
    Fourteen stories focus on a group of southern women who seek happiness and a sense of worth in bars, marriages, divorces, art, drug use, lovers' arms, and earthquakes

Books of Blood, Volume One


Clive Barker - 1984
    Weaving tales of the everyday world transformed into an unrecognizable place, where reason no longer exists and logic ceases to explain the workings of the universe, Clive Barker provides the stuff of nightmares in packages too tantalizing to resist.Never one to shy away from the unimaginable or the unspeakable, Clive Barker breathes life into our deepest, darkest nightmares, creating visions that are at once terrifying, tender, and witty.The Books of Blood confirm what horror fans everywhere have known for a long time: We will be hearing from Clive Barker for many years to come. This first volume contains the short stories : "The Book of Blood," "The Midnight Meat Train," "The Yattering and Jack," "Sex, Death, and Starshine," and "In the Hills, the Cities."

Facing the Music


Larry Brown - 1984
    As the St. Petersburg Times review pointed out, the central theme of these ten stories “is the ageless collision of man with woman, woman with man--with the frequent introduction of that other familiar couple, drinking and violence. Most often ugly, love is nevertheless graceful, however desperate the situation.”There’s some glare from the brutally bright light Larry Brown shines on his subjects. This is the work of a writer unafraid to gaze directly at characters challenged by crisis and pathology. But for readers who are willing to look, unblinkingly, along with the writer, there are unusual rewards.

Nohow On: Company, Ill Seen Ill Said, Worstward Ho


Samuel Beckett - 1984
    In Company, a voice comes to "one on his back in the dark" and speaks to him. Ill Seen Ill Said focuses attention on an old woman in a cabin who is part of the objects, landscape, rhythms, and movements of an incomprehensible universe. And in Worstward Ho, Beckett explores a tentative, uncertain existence in a world devoid of rational meaning and purpose. Here is language pared down to its most expressive, confirming Beckett's position as one of the great writers of our time.

The Collected Prose


Elizabeth Bishop - 1984
    The selections are arranged not by date of compostion, but in biographical order, such that reading this volume greatly enriches one's understanding of Bishop's life--and thus her poetry as well. "Bishop's admirers will want to consult her Collected Prose for the light it sheds on her poetry," as David Lehman wrote in Newsweek. "They will discover, however, that it is more than just a handsome companion volume to [her] Complete Poems. . . . Bishop's clean, limpid prose makes her stories and memoirs a delight to read. . . . One regrets only that this volume cannot be added to in years to come."

Night Crawlers


Robert R. McCammon - 1984
    When a stranger stops in for a cup of coffee, they can’t help but be suspicious. He’s shaky, surly, and looks to be teetering on the edge of a breakdown. As tensions rise and violence erupts, reality crumbles—and everyone in the diner bears witness to the horror of a veteran terrorized by gruesome memories of war.

Unlikely Stories, Mostly


Alasdair Gray - 1984
    Title and author’s name are printed in bold roman type. Next to the author’s name is the image of an “improved duck” (a device invented by Vague McMenamy, protagonist of the story “The Crank that Made the Revolution”, to enhance duck mobility). Arranged around the lettering is a grid of black and white squares. In each one, a winged foetus nestles within the cross-section of a skull. A horizontal strip across the bottom shows a recumbent child attached to a kite, floating over a Chinese city in flames – an image echoed in the story “Five Letters from an Eastern Empire”. On the spine, a naked woman is the object of amorous attention from the legendary beast in the tale “The Comedy of the White Dog”.

Stories for Children


Isaac Bashevis Singer - 1984
    Thirty-six stories by the Nobel Prize winner, including some of his most famous such as "Zlateh the Goat," "Mazel and Shlimazel," and "The Fools of Chelm and the Stupid Carp."Stories for Children is a 1984 New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of the Year.

The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection


Gardner DozoisGreg Bear - 1984
    A. Lafferty295 • Blind Shemmy • (1983) • novelette by Jack Dann316 • In the Islands • (1983) • shortstory by Pat Murphy329 • Nunc Dimittis • (1983) • novelette by Tanith Lee348 • Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear371 • Her Furry Face • (1983) • shortstory by Leigh Kennedy387 • Knight of Shallows • (1983) • novelette by Rand B. Lee419 • The Cat • [Solar Cycle] • (1983) • shortstory by Gene Wolfe426 • The Monkey Treatment • (1983) • novelette by George R. R. Martin452 • Nearly Departed • [Deadpan Allie] • (1983) • shortstory by Pat Cadigan467 • Hearts Do Not in Eyes Shine • (1983) • novelette by John Kessel486 • Carrion Comfort • (1983) • novelette by Dan Simmons522 • Gemstone • (1983) • novelette by Vernor Vinge546 • Black Air • (1983) • novelette by Kim Stanley Robinson571 • Honorable Mentions: 1983 • essay by Gardner Dozois

Sword and Sorceress


Marion Zimmer BradleyJennifer Roberson - 1984
    I hop to avoid either and to entertain you while I'm doing it."Here she has succeeded!

Melancholy Elephants


Spider Robinson - 1984
    Contents:Melancholy Elephants (1982)Half an Oaf (1976)High Infidelity (1984)Antinomy (1978)In the Olden Days (1984)Chronic Offender (1981)No Renewal (1977)Common Sense (1985)Rubber Soul (1982)Concordiat to "Rubber Soul" (1985) essayFather Paradox (1985)True Minds (1984)Satan's Children (1979)Not Fade Away (1982)

We Don't Live Here Anymore


Andre Dubus - 1984
    Hank married Edith, the prettiest girl Jack had ever seen, and Jack married Terry, whom he thinks he may no longer love. But Hank and Edith’s adultery didn’t begin or end with Jack and Terry. Moving, perceptive, rendered in clear-eyed prose, We Don’t Live Here Anymore maps with preternatural insight the often separate lands of love and marriage.

We Can Get Them For You Wholesale


Neil Gaiman - 1984
    Original Fiction, Short StoryPeter Pinter had never heard of Aristippus of the Cyrenaics, a lesser-known follower of Socrates who maintained that the avoidance of trouble was the highest attainable good; however...http://www.baen.com/Chapters/97809884...

Sredni Vashtar and Other Stories


Saki - 1984
    Munro (his pseudonym is from FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam) satirized the social conventions, cruelty and foolishness of the Edwardian era with a highly readable blend of flippant humor and outrageous inventiveness, often overlaid with a mood of horror.

Prose and Poetry: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets / The Red Badge of Courage / Stories, Sketches, Journalism, The Black Riders / War Is Kind


Stephen Crane - 1984
    This comprehensive collection includes all his most accomplished and best-known works: five novels, short stories, journalism, war correspondence, and his two completed books of poetry.Here are the classic novels he published in a span of five years: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), about a young and confused Union soldier under fire for the first time; Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), a vivid portrait of slum life and a young girl’s fall; George’s Mother (1896), about New York’s Bowery and its effect on a young workingman fresh from the country; The Third Violet (1897), the story of a bohemian artist’s country romance; and The Monster (1899), a novella about sacrifice and rescue, guilt and isolation.Among his short stories are such masterpieces as “The Open Boat,” “The Blue Hotel,” and “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky.” His prose is at the same time dense and lean, suited to his description of the elusive forces that impinge upon his characters, and suited also to his desire not to circumscribe them with traditional moral and interpretive definition. Included here as well are the Whilomville stories of children and childhood in small-town America and the Sullivan County sketches of turn-of-the-twentieth-century rural life.As a journalist, Crane covered the Spanish-American War and the Greco-Turkish War, traveled through Mexico and the West, and reported on the seamier sides of New York City life; the best of his dispatches are gathered here. Also featured are both of Crane’s collections of epigrammatic free verse—The Black Riders (1895) and War is Kind (1899)—and selections from his uncollected poems. His poetry shows strong affinities to Emily Dickinson, while also anticipating the Imagist movement later in the twentieth century.This is the most substantial gathering of Crane’s work ever made available in one volume; it is an enduring testimony to his heroic achievement.

All the Mowgli Stories


Rudyard Kipling - 1984
    Here is the complete tale of Mowgli the man cub and his loved jungle brothers—nine tales and nine songs, beginning with Mowgli's Brothers and ending with the last of all the Mowgli stories In the Rukh, published in a single volume.

A Fanatic Heart


Edna O'Brien - 1984
    Her stories portray a young Irish girl's view of obsessive love and its often wrenching pain, while tales of contemporary life show women who open themselves to sexuality, to disappointment, to madness. Throughout, there is always O'Brien's voice—wondrous, despairing, moving—examining passionate subjects that lay bare the desire and needs that can be hidden in a woman's heart.

Collected Stories of John O'Hara


John O'Hara - 1984
    American LiteratureContains:The doctor's son -- It must have been spring -- Over the river and through the wood -- Price's always open -- Are we leaving tomorrow? -- Pal Joey -- The gentleman in the tan suit -- Good-bye, Herman -- Olive -- Do you like it here? -- Now we know -- Free -- Too young -- Bread alone -- Graven image -- Common sense should tell you -- Drawing room B -- The pretty daughters - The moccasins -- Imagine kissing Pete -- The girl from California -- In the silence -- Exactly eight thousand dollars exactly -- Winter dance -- The flatted saxophone -- The friends of Miss Julia -- How can I tell you? -- Ninety minutes away -- Our friend the sea -- Can I stay here? -- The hardware man -- The pig -- Zero -- Fatimas and kisses -- Natica Jackson -- We'll have fun.

We Love Glenda So Much and A Change of Light


Julio Cortázar - 1984
    In settings ranging from the Buenos Aires subway to a luxurious Martinique resort, stories by an Argentinian master blend unsettling suspense, intellectual play, clever fantasy, and intense emotional conflict

Is That What People Do? Short Stories


Robert Sheckley - 1984
    

A Glove Shop in Vienna and Other Stories


Eva Ibbotson - 1984
    Ibbotson concentrates on the infinite variety of Great Love--its discovery, development, recognition, loss, and denouement. Her characters, males and females of all ages and professions, are frequently seen during the Christmas season and in prewar Vienna and Russia. In many stories, people find and lose each other--often with an O. Henry twist. Ibbotson, a winner of the Romantic Novelists Association award, writes charmingly about love, forgiveness, loss, and happiness.

Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa: Stories


W.P. Kinsella - 1984
    Ten stories deal with a farmer who loves baseball, a carpenter repairing a broken doll, a clever prostitute, and a wandering salesman

The Sealed Angel and Other Stories by Nikolay Leskov


Nikolai Leskov - 1984
    

Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space


Isaac Asimov - 1984
    Herein are answered questions which have plagued loyal readers for decades, including: What is the truth about the mysterious menace of Sumatra? What occurs when Holmes must pursue an extra-terrestrial? Stories by authors: Isaac Asimov, Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson, Philip Jose Farmer; Sterling Lanier, Gene Wolfe, Edward Wellen and others, for your amusement and edification.(back cover)Introduction: Sherlock Holmes / Isaac Asimov --The Adventure of the devil's foot / Arthur Conan Doyle --The Problem of the Sore Bridge among others / Philip Jose Farmer --The Adventure of the global traveler / Anne Lear --The Great dormitory mystery / F.N. Farber --The Adventure of the misplaced hound / Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson --The Thing waiting outside / Barbara Williamson --A Father's tale / Sterling E. Lanier --The Adventure of the extraterrestrial / Mack Reynolds --A Scarletin study / Philip Jose Farmer --Voiceover / Edward Wellen --The Adventure of the metal murderer / Fred Saberhagen --Slaves of silver / Gene Wolfe --God of the naked unicorn / Richard Lupoff --Death in the Christmas hour / James Powell --The Ultimate crime / Isaac Asimov.

The Siren: A Selection from Dino Buzzati


Dino Buzzati - 1984
    Contains the novella "Barnabo of the Mountains" and the following short stories:-The Bewitched Bourgeois-Personal Escort-An Interrupted Story-The Gnawing Worm-The Time Machine-The Five Brothers-The Flying Carpet-The Prohibited Word-The Plague-Confidential-Duelling Stories-A Difficult Evening-Kafka's House

Collected Prose


Robert Creeley - 1984
    Although he has since established himself as one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century, his remarkable body of prose work remains an essential part of his oeuvre.In addition to his first book of short stories The Gold Diggers, a novel The Island, a radio play Listen, and Mabel: A Story, this omnibus edition includes two previously uncollected stories.

The Thrill Of The Grass


W.P. Kinsella - 1984
    P. Kinsella. Lovers of the game and lovers of fine writing will thrill to the range of the eleven stories that make up this new collection. From the magical conspiracy of the title story, to the celestial prediction in The Last Pennant Before Armageddon, to the desolation of The Baseball Spur, Kinsella explores the world of baseball and makes it, miraculously, a microcosm of the human condition.

41 Stories


O. Henry - 1984
    Henry evokes wordplay that is dazzling, inventive, wry, and humorous. This anthology includes forty-one stories that continue to captivate generation after generation of readers, including "The Gift of the Magi", "The Furnished Room", and those which demonstrate the technical genius and wide range of O. Henry's world.

World Treasury Of Children's Literature, Vol. 2


Clifton Fadiman - 1984
    An anthology of classical and contemporary children's stories, poems, myths, and legends from many countries.

Great Detectives: A Century of the Best Mysteries from England and America


David Willis McCullough - 1984
    Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Robert van Gulik, William Faulkner, Dashiell Hammett, Edmund Cripn, Raymond Chandler, Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, Ray Bradbury, P.D. James, Donald Westlake, and Ed McBain. From Zangwill's 1892 classic The Big Bow Mystery to James's never-before-published “The Murder of Santa Clause,” these detective stories offer every kind of tension, shock and intrigue—a century's worth of excitement.The New York Times has called Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer novels “the best series of detective novels by an American,” and The Chill is vintage Archer. His investigation of the disappearance of a bride on her honeymoon leads him to a small southern California college and to three related murders spinning two decades and half a continent.In Ruth Rendell's Death Nothes, Inspector Wexford is called upon to investigate the accidental death of a world-famous flutist. As he probes the case, he discovers false identities, odd coincidences, and the certainty that the death was no accident, but a meticulously planned murder.Dashiell Hammett's private eye Sam Spade appears only in The Maltese Falcon—and in three short stories, “A Man Called Spade,” “They Can Only Hang You Once,” and “Too Many Have Lived.” All three are included here—together for the first time in decades.Featuring Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlow, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey, and the formidable Ellery Queen, Great Detectives assembles the star sleuths of the last century and a dazzling array of tales—the best by the best.Contents: Foreword / David Willis McCullough — The Big Bow Mystery—Israel Zangwill — The Queen’s Square—Dorothy L. Sayers — The Invisible Man—G. K. Chesterton — The Girl in the Train—Agatha Christie — The Murder on the Lotus Pond—Robert van Gulik — Hand Upon the Waters—William Faulkner— The Sam Spade Stories—Dashiell Hammett— A Man Called Spade—Dashiell Hammett — They Can Only Hang You Once—Dashiell Hammett — Too Many Have Lived—Dashiell Hammett — The Hunchback Cat—Edmund Crispin — Trouble is My Business—Raymond Chandler — The Adventure of Abraham Lincoln’s Clue—Ellery Queen — See No Evil—Rex Stout — Yesterday I Lived!—Ray Bradbury — The Chill—Ross Macdonald — The Murder of Santa Claus—P. D. James — Never Shake a Family Tree—Donald E. Westlake — Death Notes—Ruth Rendell — Sadie When She Died—Ed McBain

Mrs. Todd's Shortcut, from Skeleton Crew


Stephen King - 1984
    Ophelia Todd is always looking for a shorter distance between two points, so she just wrinkles the map a little--until she gets caught in one of the wrinkles.Description: 1 audiocassette (78 min.) : analog, Dolby processed.

Great Myths And Legends


Childcraft International - 1984
    As you will discover, these are exciting tales of adventure, filled with sorcerers and witches, dragons and goblins, and all kinds of magic. Each is a story of good against evil.All of these tales were told by storytellers long before they were written down. And they were told with a purpose. Myths are about gods and goddessess and superhuman being. They were generally told to explain a belief or something in nature. Legends are almost always based on something that actually happened. They were told to glorify someone who had performed great deeds or caused marvelous things to happen.But most of all, these are tales of heroes and heroines, young and old. They have the qualities their people most admired--courage, wisdom, goodness, strength, self-sacrifice, gentleness, loyalty, generosity, honesty, and kindness.

Apples and Pears and Other Stories


Guy Davenport - 1984
    

Bazaar of the Bizarre


Fritz Leiber - 1984
    

How Far She Went


Mary Hood - 1984
    "The madder she got, the greener everything grew."

A Girl Like Me, and Other Stories


Xi Xi - 1984
    

Russian 19th Century Gothic Tales


Valentin Korovin - 1984
    

More Good Old Stuff


John D. MacDonald - 1984
    MacDonald, were selected from the hundreds that originally appeared in the immensely popular pulp magazines of the late 1940s. Superb entertainment from one of crime's most famous and accomplished writers. 'The stories share MacDonald's love of a buzz ending and the biting setup' Chicago Sun-Times

Like a Lamb to Slaughter


Lawrence Block - 1984
    In this ingenious collection, multiple award-winning mystery author Lawrence Block leads us into dark, unprotected fields, where human sheep gather in terror of predatory wolves. And we follow willingly-through a hayseed's bloody mid-life crisis, into the explosive heart of a vengeful CPA:s account-balancing...and onto the streets with p.i. Matthew Scudder, as he spends an inheritance from a baglady to hunt down the old woman's killer.

Mouth Open, Story Jump Out


Grace Hallworth - 1984
    They include stories about the Loup Garous, who takes an animal's form at night; l'Esprits, who died, they say, without finding peace; Papa Bois, father of the forest; and the mermaids and fairymaids who inhabit the islands' lakes and rivers.

Oldtimer and Other Stories


José Y. Dalisay Jr. - 1984
    It contains ten stories described by Dalisay as "the stories of my first thirty years...of my first lifetime." The stories vary in their styles and concerns, from the friendship of two men in New York just after the war to the plight of an Army doctor ministering to a teenage insurgent and the heady charm of a kept woman living next door. "No two stories in the collection are alike: that's Dalisay's feeling for form operating," observed Francisco Arcellana in his introduction to the first edition. "In the work of Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., material is the given. The rest is his feeling for form."Jose Y. Dalisay Jr. has published ten books of fiction, drama, and non-fiction. He teaches English and creative writing at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, where he also chairs the Department of English and Comparative Literature. He has won Palanca, CCP, TOYM, and National Book Awards for his writing, and has been a Fullbright, Hawthornden, British Council, and David TK Wong fellow.

The Crystal Spheres


David Brin - 1984
    Instead of being late-comers -- might humanity have come upon the scene too early? This haunting tale was voted one of the "most beautiful of the eighties." Winner of the 1985 Hugo Award.

Pieces of String and Other Stories


Tita Lacambra-Ayala - 1984
    

A Cat May Look at a King


Ramsay Wood - 1984
    Vicious, affectionate, murderous or benign - however you view cats you will find them portrayed here in full contradictory splendour. Aided by eight top illustrators, Ramsay Wood retells a lively, personal selection. His first book was the highly acclaimed "Kalila and Dimna, Vol 1: Fables of Friendship and Betrayal" which was adapted for the stage as "A Word in the Stargazer's Eye" at the 1984 Edinburgh Festival.

Young Mutants


Isaac Asimov - 1984
    A collection of short stories by a variety of authors about children with one common characteristic--they are all mutants.

Phantom Pain


Lucia Berlin - 1984
    Lucia Berlin was born in Alaska, raised in Chili, and presently lives and works in California. Her stories have appeared in The Noble Savage, The Critic, The Atlantic, The London Strand, and Quilt, and many other magazines and journals. This is her second volume of short stories.

Harmony of the World: Stories


Charles Baxter - 1984
    Whether he is writing about the players in a rickety bisexual love triangle or a woman visiting her husband in a nursing home, probing the psychic mainspring of a grimly obsessive weight lifter or sifting through the layers of resentment, need, and pity in a friendship that has gone on a few decades too long, Baxter enchants us with the elegant balance of his prose and the unexpectedness of his insights. Long admired and now once more available in paperback, Harmony of the World is a masterpiece of lucidity and compassion.

The Beautiful Biting Machine


Tanith Lee - 1984
    It is only one of many attractions on this world, this pleasure planet. Qire is the owner of Malvanda's Mansion, a pavilion located within The Nightfair. Qire's pamphlets describe Malvanda as "The Night-Blooming Bella Donna of Eternal Gothic Fantasy." Through her unique capabilities, Malvanda is able to satisfy the different appetites of Qire's customers, and of his valued employee Beldeck.

We Are Not in This Together: Stories


William Kittredge - 1984
    Eight short stories portray the struggles of ordinary people to cope with the problems of life in the contemporary American West.

The Darling and Other Stories


Anton Chekhov - 1984
    This large print title is set in Tieras 16pt font as reccomended by the RNIB.

Sweet Hollow


Lou V. Crabtree - 1984
    If the pleasures of men, women, and children in these seven stories are simple, the ills and misfortunes that beset them are equally forthright and undiluted. There is beauty in the ridges and ponds, and grace in the flights of birds overhead; but nature also bestows lessons of cruelty and can, without warning, turn tormentor. There is magic and holiness in these hills, but there is also witchcraft and the hoofprint of the devil.Lou Crabtree portrays this world in all its rugged complexity, writing of the games of its children and the struggles of its adults, the wiles of its predators and the contentment of its livestock. In "Little Jesus" she tells of the roamings of a group of children and of the one fatherless boy among them who is the innocent victim of their jokes and scourgings. "Wild John" is the story of a hellfire preacher's attempts to understand the actions of his vengeful, seemingly hellbent son. "Holy Spirit" tells of the life of Old Rellar, a woman who, cruelly mistreated by her husband, is left to expend her gift of pure, selfless love on the buried bodies of her thirteen miscarriages and on the motherless calf and piglet that she nurses back to health. And "Homer-Snake" describes the affection of a solitary woman named Old Marth for a particularly cunning blacksnake who lives in the corner of her stone chimney.The world of Sweet Hollow is a harsh one. But it is a world where, at times, nature and humanity can be glimpsed in perfect balance. There are places such as "The Jake Pond," where life follows its cycle of seasons undisturbed. There are moments like those in "The Miracle in Sweet Hollow," when wonders occur and the earth and the heavens are suddenly in harmony.

A Fantasy Of Man: Henry Lawson Complete Works, 1901-1922


Henry Lawson - 1984
    

I Want to See the Moon


Louis Baum - 1984
    Despite such distractions as going to the bathroom, looking at his book, and playing with his building blocks, young Toby eventually gets his oft-repeated wish to see the moon.

Meeting of the Minds: Short Stories of Robert Sheckley, Volume 1


Robert Sheckley - 1984
    First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical. Sheckley was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001. Included in this collection are nine of some of his best stories written in the 1950s. Includes the following stories: MEETING OF THE MINDS, THE LEECH, UNTOUCHED BY HUMAN HANDS, WARRIOR RACE, SHAPE, WRITING CLASS, SEVENTH VICTIM, COST OF LIVING, and THE LAST WEAPON

Fast Lanes


Jayne Anne Phillips - 1984
    Jayne Anne Phillips has always been a master of portraiture, both in her widely acclaimed novels and in her short fiction.  The stories in Fast Lanes demonstrated the breadth of her talent in a tour de force of voices, offering elegantly rendered views into the lives of characters torn between the liberation of detachment and the desire to connect.Three stories are collected in this edition for the first time: in "Alma," and adolescent daughter is made the confidante of her lonely mother; "Counting" traces the history of a dommed love affair; and "Callie" evokes memories of the haunting death of a child in 1920's West Virginia.  Along with the original seven stories from Fast Lanes--each told in extraordinary first person narratives that have been hailed by critics as virtuoso performances--these incandescent portraits offer windows into the lives of an entire generation of Americans, demonstrating again and again why Jayne Anne Phillips remains one of our most powerful writers.

The Fire When It Comes


Parke Godwin - 1984
    Contents:The Fire When It Comes (1981)The Lady of Finnigan's Hearth (1977)Unsigned Original (1975)Stroke of Mercy (1981)The Little Things (1981)Up Yours, Federico (1981)The Last Rainbow (1978)The Second Day of Genius (1984)Influencing the Hell Out of Time and Teresa Golowitz (1982)

Ratbags and Rascals


Robin Klein - 1984
    (Young Clara thinks her street is so boring but she soon rectifies this by adding stars on the footpath, a swimming pool inside a dissused house and a stage where you can bring something and take something.)

Thirteen Uncanny Stories


Hans Henny Jahnn - 1984
    Suhrkamp, 1967). They reflect his Weltanschauung of the harmonious universe in which man is part of an endless chain, connected on the one hand to his ancestors who pass their deeds on through their works, and on the other to the future by means of the everlasting repetition of the process of nature. To Jahnn the meaning of life was that there are no answers and that man is an unknown quantity. The tragic seriousness of life is not without hope, however, for man is a responsible being, and in this world in need of love and mercy he is the only one to provide uncondi- tional love. Jahnn's work has been considered to be a repetition, in modern dress, of certain aspects of the Gilgamesh epic; his motifs are drawn from it, his characters are archetypes. For the first time in English. With an introduction.

Bibliomen


Gene Wolfe - 1984
    Originally subtitled "Twenty characters waiting for a book".A collection of one- or two-page stories about individual characters.

What The President Will Say And Do!!


Madeline Gins - 1984
    WHAT THE PRESIDENT WILL SAY AND DO!! is a book about Power and Being, and the languages integral to both. The ostensible subject of Gins' formidable wit is "The Presidency" and "The Man" who gives it voice. But her virtuosic deconstruction of the devices of political rhetoric suggests a deeper purpose: one related to identity, language, and the value of meaning. Through such pieces as "THE History of THE" and "How to Breathe" Gins sculpts a multidimensional discourse and proposes a model strategy for free, effective speech. Utopia, the author implies, depends on a practical, uncoerced poetics. "Thank god for thinking.... I love the rationally incisive instructions, I always feel like I'm getting somewhere.... It's excellent. Great cases homiletically packaged for the pro and con alike. Syntax and so-called expectations (Great!)...."--Robert Creeley.

River Pigs and Cayuses: Oral Histories from the Pacific Northwest


Ron Strickland - 1984
    

Time to Go


Stephen Dixon - 1984
    Part short story collection, part novel, Time to Go moves from despair to hope, from the passing of things—time, relationships, businesses, chances—to the coming of marriage, stability, family, a new life. It is a book that can be in turn frightening and funny, touching and tough—and one that is, on occasion, all these things at once.

Rachel and the Angel and Other Stories


Robert Westall - 1984
    But the wind had gone, and still Rachel was caught, forever in one moment in time."A collection for young adults of fantastic, chilling and extraordinary stories from a master storyteller.By the author of "Fathom Five", "Yaxley's Cat" and "The Wind Eye".

Election Day 2084: A Science Fiction Anthology on the Politics of the Future


Isaac Asimov - 1984
    Seventeen stories deal with political campaigns, the media, conventions, multiple governments, conspiracies, political machines, and leaders of the future.

Alive and dead in Indiana


Michael Martone - 1984
    

One Thing Leading to Another


Sylvia Townsend Warner - 1984
    Mackenzie's last hour -- I met a lady -- A widow's quilt -- Mother tongue -- Proper circumstance -- Narrative of events preceding the death of Queen Ermine -- Queen Mousie -- An improbable story -- The Duke of Orkney's Leonardo.

Up the Chimney Down and Other Stories


Joan Aiken - 1984
    The last chimney cuckoo -- Miss Hooting's legacy -- The gift-giving -- The dog on the roof -- The missing heir -- Up the chimney down -- Christmas at Troy -- The midnight rose -- The happiest sheep in London -- The fire dogs -- Potter's gray.

Shadows 7


Charles L. GrantSusan Casper - 1984
    Haldeman IITalking in the Dark by Dennis EtchisonDecoys by Jere CunninghamRapture by Melissa Mia HallI Shall Not Leave England Now by Alan Ryan.

Forty Fathom Bank


Les Galloway - 1984
    In the tradition of the sea sagas of Joseph Conrad and Ernest Hemingway, it is a deceptively simple and powerful story of a man who goes to sea - and survives horrendous events. The narrator, a 29-year-old married man who is down on his luck, tries to make an instant fortune by shark fishing. He acquires an old boat and teams up with Ethan May, an experienced fisherman who also has a lucrative but increasingly worrisome proposition. Far from shore, these two men suddenly find themselves confronting an uncooperative ocean, a failed engine - and each other. With its lyrical language and subtle undertow of inevitability, this short novel will pull you out to perilous waters.

Treasury of World Masterpieces: Rudyard Kipling


Rudyard Kipling - 1984
    

The Best Of Ring Lardner


Ring Lardner - 1984
    

The Ghost Light


Fritz LeiberSteve Leialoha - 1984
    The New York Times called his work "fast moving, ironic and delightful." He is the winner of every major American accolade in the field of fantastic literature: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Convention's Grandmaster Award. This incredible volume includes some of his greatest tales, a startling novella about ghosts in modern California, and a brilliant look at his own distinguished career. Here is Fritz Leiber at his best...A MASTERWORKS EDITIONFeatures beautiful illustrations by today's finest fantasy artists, including Robert Gould, David Wiesner, John Jude Palencar, Thomas Cantry and JoEllen Trilling.Cover Illustration: John Jude Palencar

The Penguin Kenneth Grahame


Kenneth Grahame - 1984
    Collected in this superb volume are his three major works. The Golden Age and Dream Days - exquisite evocations of childhood far removed from the adult 'Olympian' world - show his remarkably delicate appreciation of the minds of children. Grahame's masterpiece, The Wind in the Willows, written originally to entertain his son, has enchanted successive generations with its Arcadian vision and has become a literary classic. The book includes an introduction by Naomi Lewis.

Alfred Hitchcock's Tales to Make You Weak in the Knees


Eleanor SullivanLawrence Block - 1984
    

Prize Stories 1984: The Ohenry Awards


William Miller Abrahams - 1984
    

The Invention of Flight


Susan Neville - 1984
    Her characters—and her settings—are, most of them, midwestern. There is the staunchly midwestern wife in the story "Kentucky People," for instance. She was born in this house in this Indiana town, a world far removed from people like Mrs. Lovelace, next door, transient people "who have followed the industrial revolution from Kentucky to Indiana and most of whom are now in Texas." Nothing really out of the way has ever happened to her. Now she "shivers with excitement" when she is called upon to help Mrs. Lovelace throw her husband out—helps her haul all of his belongings out onto the porch: underwear, shoes, whiskey bottles, rolltop desk, even "wedding presents from his side of the family."The collection moves from the playful tone of "Johnny Appleseed," in which the author takes an old fecundity myth and does something different with it, to the wise and poignant story of an elderly woman attending a family gathering at which she recognizes the separateness from her children and grandchildren that the cancer within her has given her. It has been months since any one of them has kissed her on the mouth. There are so many things that she would like to tell them, "but they don't want to talk about it, each one of them positive that he is the one human being in the history of the earth who will never ever die."All of the stories in this unusual first collection stick in the reader's mind long after he has read them.