January 2025: Short Stories – Collections and Anthologies

The January 2025 meeting scanned Short Story Collections and Anthologies.  Collections by a single author ranged from some of the earliest fiction published in America—some classics of short fiction—to books published only four years ago.  Anthologies gathering various authors ranged from very specific themes to broad commercial appeal.  

Collections

The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon

Irving, Washington.  The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon.  Nos. I-VII.  New York: C. S. Van Winkle, 1819-1820.  Complete in seven parts, bound in one volume in contemporary three-quarter leather.  This is a rare copy with all seven parts being first printings with the many uncorrected text points as noted in Bibliography of American Literature.  The collection includes "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," among others, which influenced writers such as Edgar Allan Poe.  These classics are the earliest works of American literature which are still read for pleasure.  This series of tales brought Washington Irving instant fame and made him America's first international literary star.  The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon is listed in The Grolier Club's One Hundred Influential American Books Printed Before 1900.

First pages of "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Twice-Told Tales

Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  Twice-Told Tales.  Boston: American Stationers Co., John B. Russell, 1837.  First edition of Hawthorne's second book and the first to bear his name on the title page, in the original publisher's cloth covered boards.  These tales were collected from The Token, a literary gift book of the period; they are "twice-told" because they were previously published prior to this collection.  It was Twice-Told Tales which launched Hawthorne's literary career.  Hawthorne's tales were influenced by Puritanism in New England during that time and his interest in the supernatural.  The tale "Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe" was praised by Edgar Allan Poe and others.  Twice-Told Tales is listed in The Grolier Club's One Hundred Influential American Books Printed Before 1900.

Title page and Contents

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque

Poe, Edgar Allan.  Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.  Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1840.  The scarce first edition.  Two volumes bound in the original publisher's muslin covered boards.  This is the Walter Chrysler copy with his gilt-stamped leather bookplate.  Poe's first book of tales includes the all-time classics, including "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Ms. Found in Bottle," and "Ligeia."  Poe's writings have influenced many authors down through the years and are still read by the general public and made into films.

Contents, Vol I. and Vol. II

The Piazza Tales

Melville, Herman.  The Piazza Tales.  New York: Dix & Edwards, 1856.  First edition, bound in original publisher's cloth covered boards.  The Piazza Tales is Melville's only collection of short stories.  It contains six stories including "Bartleby," "Benito Cereno," and "The Encantadas," which are regarded as three of Melville's most important achievements in short fiction.  The stories were all previously published in Putnam's Monthly from 1853 to 1855.  

Title page and Contents

The Suicide Club

Stevenson, Robert Louis.  The Suicide Club.  New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896.  The Suicide Club is a collection of three detective stories which combine to form a single narrative.  The trilogy consists of "Story of the Young Man with the Cream Tarts," "Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk," and "The Adventure of the Hansom Cab."  The stories were first serialized from June through October 1878 in the London Magazine.  They were collected into the first volume of New Arabian Nights in 1882.  This 1896 fine edition is from Scribner's Ivory Series and is bound in cream cloth with elaborate green decorations, top edge gilt, and a deckled fore edge.

Contents

The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Vol. V

Stevenson, Robert Louis.  The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson.  Volume V.  New York: James L. Perkins & Co., 1906.  Volume V of the ten volume set of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, a deluxe edition limited to 1,000 sets, contains five stories including "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "The Bottle Imp."  "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," one of Stevenson's most famous pieces, was first published in 1886.  "The Bottle Imp" was concurrently published in British and American magazines in 1891 and first appeared in collected form in Island Nights' Entertainments in 1893.  Stevenson wrote "The Bottle Imp" while in Samoa and had it translated into the native language for the missionary magazine O le sulu Samoa (The Samoan Torch) in 1891, thus it was published in Samoan before it appeared in English.

Contents

A Diversity of Creatures

Kipling, Rudyard.  A Diversity of Creatures.  London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1917.  First edition, rebound in three-quarter leather and red cloth with top edge gilt.  Except for four novels, Kipling mostly wrote short stories and poems, publishing twenty-five short story collections during his lifetime.  A Diversity of Creatures contains fourteen short stories and fourteen poems, each bearing a notation of the year of its original magazine publication, apart from two stories published here for the first time (as well as most of the poems).  

The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy

Davidson, Avram.  The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy.  Philadelphia: Owlswick Press. 1990.  First edition.  Doctor Eszterhazy is a scholarly detective character set in a fantasy European country imagined by Davidson.  The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy is a collection of fourteen "historical mystery fantasy" novellas, novelettes, and short stories.  These stories were all previously published in an earlier collection, The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy (1975), or various speculative fiction magazines.  The collection was nominated for the 1992 Locus Poll Award for Best Collection and several of the stories were previously nominated for Nebula and Locus Poll awards for Best Novella, however none won in their respective nominating years.  The collection contains all of the Doctor Eszterhazy stories with the exception of "The Odd Old Bird" published in 1988.

Poems and Stories and Tales from the Perilous Realm

Tolkien, J. R. R.  Poems and Stories.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.  Illustrated by Pauline Baynes.  First edition.

Tolkien, J. R. R.  Tales from the Perilous Realm.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.  Illustrated by Alan Lee.  First published in 1997.

Two collections of Tolkien’s shorter works both containing: "Farmer Giles of Ham," "Leaf By Niggle," "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" (poems), "Smith of Wootton Major," and the essay "On Fairy Stories."  Poems and Stories also contains "The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son," a dramatic poem set after The Battle of Maldon in 991 during the reign of Æthelred II, while Tales from the Perilous Realm contains "Roverandam," a children’s story.  Tolkien's works contained in these two volumes were all previously published but gathered for the first time in Poems and Stories in 1994 and Tales from the Perilous Realm in 1997.

And Go Like This

Crowley, John.  And Go Like This: Stories.  Easthampton, MA: Small Beer Press, 2019.  First edition.  This collection of Crowley's short stories includes twelve previously published stories plus the unpublished "Anosognosia" written in 2019.  It includes his 2018 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Short Story winner “Spring Break” (originally published in New Haven Noir).  This collection of thirteen stories gathers all of Crowley's short fiction written from 2002 to 2019.

Afterparties

So, Anthony Veasna.  Afterparties: Stories.  New York: Ecco Press, 2021.  First edition.  Afterparties is a collection of short stories exploring the lives of immigrant and first-generation Cambodian Americans living in Northern California.  Its characters include survivors of the Cambodian Genocide and their American children and the impacts of intergenerational trauma in immigrant communities.  Several stories also examine queerness and LGBTQ identity within Cambodian American culture.  Afterparties won the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize for Best First Book and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ fiction.  The story "Superking Son Scores Again" won the Joyce Carol Oates Award in Fiction.  Anthony So was an emerging young writer; all the stories in this collection except one were previously published in literary journals and magazines.  Afterparties was his debut book, though he did not live to see its publication; he died several months after Ecco Press won the rights to publish his book, and before it was released.

Anthologies

Missing from their Homes

Bates, H. E., et al.  Missing From Their Homes: Short Stories on the Familiar Broadcasts for Missing Persons.  London: Hutchinson & Co., n.d. [1936].  First edition.  The title and theme of this anthology was inspired by the SOS announcements which often preceded BBC broadcasts, where alerts for missing persons were issued prior to regular BBC programming.  The compiler of this anthology is unknown, and the publication is undated, though the publisher's current catalog inserted at the back of the book is dated Summer 1936.  No copyright credits or permissions for reprinting these stories are provided.  The anthology includes well-known British writers such as H. E. Bates, Graham Greene, Anthony Berkeley [Cox], Phyllis Bentley, and L. A. G. Strong.  The selected stories include tales of missing persons, kidnappings, and abductions, though it is not exclusively a crime fiction anthology.  Several of the stories have never been reprinted, and several of the stories are written in a dark or suspenseful style that is out-of-character for their respective author (such as E. M. Delafield, a humorous writer).  These characteristics of the book make it highly desirable but difficult to find.

Title page and Contents

Alfred Hitchcock's Fireside Book of Suspense

Hitchcock, Alfred, ed.  Alfred Hitchcock's Fireside Book of Suspense.  New York: Simon and Schuster, 1947.  First edition.  Edited and with Introductory Notes by Mr. Hitchcock.  This anthology contains 27 short stories and novelettes which Hitchcock selected for their element of suspense.  Hitchcock writes, "It seems to me that suspense is a significant element in every story—else what we are dealing with is not a story at all… Suspense is the plot device which makes storytelling an art."  For the stories selected here, Hitchcock focused on suspense accompanied by danger, a quality of suspense which has always intrigued him.  The selected stories are penned by such American and English writers as Stephen Vincent Benet, Lord Dunsany, James M. Cain, Margery Sharp, John Dickson Carr, A. D. Divine, and Graham Greene.  This title is one of several anthologies of suspense stories published in the 1940s and credited to Hitchcock.  It is the first of his anthologies to be published in hardback and the first to bear his name in the title (the previous books contained only his introduction).  First edition copies of this title in a dust jacket, in any condition, are difficult to locate and, when found, generally command a high price.  

Table of Contents

Humorously, at the beginning of Hitchcock's 1951 thriller Strangers on a Train, the lead character, Guy Haines (played by Farley Granger), is reading a copy of Alfred Hitchcock's Fireside Book of Suspense when he is first approached by the psychopath Bruno Anthony (played by Robert Walker).  

After the King

Greenberg, Martin H., ed.  After the King: Stories in Honor of J. R. R. Tolkien.  New York: Tor Books, 1992.  This anthology is a gathering of nineteen new fantasy and science fiction stories written to celebrate the centennial of Tolkien's birth.  The stories are not set in, or directly related to, Tolkien's legendarium, but seek to capture the spirit and originality of Tolkien's work.  Contributors include Stephen R. Donaldson, Terry Pratchett, Poul and Karen Anderson, Charles de Lint, Jane Yolen, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough.  After the King includes an introduction by Jane Yolen on Tolkien's role in the fantasy genre.

Travelman Short Story Collection

Mansfield, Katherine, et al.  Travelman Short Story Collection.  Set no. 1: Special Edition.  London: Travelman Publishing, 1998.  The Travelman Short Story Editions box set is an anthology of 34 stories by 24 writers in 24 individual issues, in a variety of fiction genres, representing some of the classics of short fiction.  The set includes such works as Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" (Suspense), D. H. Lawrence's "The Rocking Horse Winner" (Classics), H. G. Wells's "The Country of the Blind" (Science Fiction), and Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band" (Crime).  The "short stories that fold like a map" are printed on large 15" x 21" sheets of durable paper stock and arranged into 24 panels.  The paper can be unfolded lengthwise and read in four-panel sections like turning the pages of a book.  The stories were available in a box set, though only a small quantity was issued.  Most readers were subscribers to the series, who received each issue in the mail in a specially designed envelope.  A total of 36 issues were released, but the novelty publishing endeavor did not survive the year it originated, and the planned second box set was never released.  While most of the individual titles are still easy to find, the special edition box set No. 1 is scarce, if not rare.

24 issues contained in box set No. 1

December 2024: Science Fiction (Pre-1960)

Pre-1960 Science Fiction materialized as the topic for the December 2024 meeting.  Offerings ranged from some of the most recognizable science fiction classics to little-known, mostly forgotten stories.

The featured books are presented here in chronological order of their original publication date.

A Journey to the Center of the Earth

Verne, Jules.  A Journey to the Center of the Earth.  London: Griffith and Farran, 1872.  First edition in English and first British edition.  A Journey to the Center of the Earth was first published in French in 1864 as Voyage au centre de la Terre; a revised and expanded edition was issued in 1867.  The first edition in English is one of the rarest of Jules Verne titles.  This copy is in very good condition; it is beautifully rebound in full leather, probably by the first owner in the 1870s.  

From the Earth to the Moon

Verne, Jules.  From the Earth to the Moon, Direct in Ninety-Seven Hours and Twenty Minutes: And a Trip Round It.  New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Company, 1874.  First American edition.  The novel was first published in French as De la Terre à la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes in 1865.  From the Earth to the Moon was first translated into English in 1867.  This copy in the original publisher's gilt illustrated binding is in good condition.  Copies of From the Earth to the Moon are scarce in this attractive condition.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas

Verne, Jules.  Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas; or, The Marvellous and Exciting Adventures of Pierre Aronnax, Conseil His Servant, and Ned Land, a Canadian Harpooner.  Boston: George M. Smith & Co., 1873.  First American edition.  The story was originally serialized in a biweekly French periodical, Magasin d'éducation et de récréation, from March 1869 through June 1870.  Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers was first published in book form in 1871, and first published in English as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas in 1872.  This copy, in fine condition, retains the original publisher's gilt illustrated binding.  Copies of this edition are scarce, and rare in such fine condition.

Looking Backward, 2000 – 1887 

Bellamy, Edward.  Looking Backward, 2000 – 1887.  Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1898.  Memorial edition with an introduction by Sylvester Baxter.  Looking Backward was first published in 1888 by Ticknor & Company.  Following Bellamy's death in 1898, Houghton Mifflin released this memorial edition, ten years after the original publication, with Baxter's introduction.  In 1888, the initial sales of Looking Backward were modest, but an enthusiastic review by Sylvester Baxter for the Boston Herald helped boost sales of the book, leading to the second edition published in 1889 by Houghton Mifflin (which had purchased Ticknor & Co. during that time).  This copy lacks its dust jacket and has some marks on the cover, but the pages are clean with no markings.

Ben-Beor

Bien, H. M.  Ben-Beor: A Story of the Anti-Messiah.  Baltimore: Isaac Friedenwald Co., 1891.  This obscure title is a science fiction pastiche to two classic texts, Lew Wallace's Ben Hur and Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew.  Ben-Beor is divided into two parts.  Part I: Lunar Intaglios: The Man in the Moon, is a "counterpart" to Wallace's Ben Hur, in which the prophet Elijah journeys to the moon in a fiery chariot.  Part II: Historical Phantasmagoria: The Wandering Gentile, is a "companion romance" to Sue's The Wandering Jew.  This title is listed in Everett Bleiler's The Checklist of Fantastic Literature (1948).  This copy is in good condition with mottling to the cloth at the edges; the cover title is bright in gilt, though the lettering is dulled along the spine.

The Time Machine and The Invisible Man

Wells, H. G.  The Time Machine: An Invention.  Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1986.  Leather-bound with gilt decoration.  Wells's time travel story began as a series of loosely connected, fictionalized essays published in National Observer in 1894 but was not completed.  Wells reworked the story and serialized it in The New Review from January to May 1895.  It was published in book form in the United States on May 7, 1895, followed by the British edition on May 29, 1895.  There are textual differences between the two first editions; it is possible they were prepared from different manuscripts.  Nearly all modern reprints follow the British text.

Wells, H. G.  The Invisible Man.  Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1967.  Leather-bound with gilt decoration and "Invisible" blind stamped on front cover.  The Invisible Man was originally serialized in 1897 in Pearson's Weekly and published in book form later that year.  

An Antarctic Mystery

Verne, Jules.  An Antarctic Mystery.  Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1899.  First American edition.  The story was first published in French as Le Sphinx des glaces (The Sphinx of the Ice Fields) in 1897.  It was first translated into English and retitled as An Antarctic Mystery in 1898; this English edition was translated by Mrs. Cashel Hoey.  Verne wrote An Antarctic Mystery as an original sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838).  This copy in the original publisher's silver and white illustrated binding is in fine, virtually as-new, condition.  The steel blue cloth with silver gilt and white cover illustration evokes a sense of the cold Antarctic ice.

An Antarctic Mystery

Verne, Jules.  An Antarctic Mystery.  Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1900.  A subsequent printing, published one year after the first edition with a newly designed cover.  This edition contains 17 black and white illustrations on glossy stock.  This copy is in good condition; it lacks the dust jacket, but the interior is clean with no markings.

The House on the Borderland

Hodgson, William Hope.  The House on the Borderland & Other Novels.  Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1946.  This posthumous edition collects Hodgson's four major novels: The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" (1907), The House on the Borderland (1908), The Ghost Pirates (1909), and The Night Land (1912).  The dust jacket artwork is by Hannes Bok.

A Voyage to Arcturus

Lindsay, David.  A Voyage to Arcturus.  New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963.  This story was first published in 1920 after Lindsay agreed with his publisher to change the title and cut approximately 15,000 words from the text.  The book sold poorly when it was first released; only 596 copies sold out of the first print run of 1,430.  It did not sell well during his lifetime, but a second edition was published in 1946 shortly after Lindsay's death.  That edition sold well, and the book became highly influential as a sci-fi classic.  A Voyage to Arcturus was a major literary influence for C. S. Lewis's The Space Trilogy (see below).  This 1963 edition is the first reprinting after the 1946 rerelease.

Skull-Face and Others

Howard, Robert E.  Skull-Face and Others.  Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1946.  Robert Howard was the creator of Conan, Red Sonja and several other characters published in pulp magazines.  Skull-Face, the titular story in this collection, was originally serialized in Weird Tales magazine from October 1929 through December 1929.  This book was his third posthumously published omnibus.  The dust jacket artwork by Hannes Bok.

Who Goes There?

Campbell, Jr., John W.  Who Goes There?  Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 1948.  The novella was originally published in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. Campbell used the pseudonym Don A. Stuart since he was the editor of Astounding.  The story was adapted to film in 1951 by Howard Hawks as The Thing from Another World, and again more accurately in 1982, as The Thing, by John Carpenter.  A prequel movie was released in 2011.  In 2018, a longer version of the story titled Frozen Hell was discovered in John Campbell’s archives.  A crowd-funded campaign allowed this new version to be published under the original Frozen Hell title.  The dust jacket artwork for this 1948 edition is by Hannes Bok.

The Space Trilogy

Lewis, C. S.  The Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.  Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 2003.  Three volumes.  Out of the Silent Planet, the first book in The Space Trilogy, was first published in 1938.  Perelandra, the second book, was published in 1943.  That Hideous Strength, the third book, was published in 1945.  This three-volume edition is leather-bound with gilt decoration.

The Tortured Planet

Lewis, C.S.  The Tortured Planet.  New York: Avon, 1958.  First thus.  The Tortured Planet is an abridgement of That Hideous Strength (1945) shortened by the author.  This abridgement is also the first paperback edition.

Sixth Column

Heinlein, Robert A.  Sixth Column.  New York: Gnome Press, 1949.  First thus.  This novel was first published under Heinlein's pseudonym Anson MacDonald in Astounding Science Fiction from January to March 1941.  In the story, the USA is conquered by Asia, and a small group of scientists schemes to re-establish the country.  This copy is in fine condition with its original dust jacket in vivid red and yellow with no fading.  

Rocket Ship Galileo

Heinlein, Robert A.  Rocket Ship Galileo.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947.  First edition.  Rocket Ship Galileo was the first in a series of 12 classic science fiction novels written by Heinlein for the young adult market.  The 1950 movie Destination Moon directed by George Pal was loosely based on this novel and is considered one of the first “serious” science fiction films.  This copy is in near fine condition with its original dust jacket.  

Space Cadet

Heinlein, Robert A.  Space Cadet.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.  First edition.  Space Cadet is the second in a series of 12 classic science fiction novels written by Heinlein for the young adult market.  The early television series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950 – 1955) was very loosely based on this novel.  This copy is in very good condition with its original dust jacket.  

Red Planet

Heinlein, Robert A.  Red Planet.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949.  First edition.  Red Planet is the third in a series of 12 classic science fiction novels written by Heinlein for the young adult market.  The novel was adapted by Gunther-Wahl Productions into an animated miniseries for Fox Kids in 1994.  This copy is in near fine condition with its original dust jacket.  

What Mad Universe

Brown, Frederic.  What Mad Universe.  Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1986.  This story was first published in 1949.  The novel humorously satirizes the conventions of American pulp science-fiction of the 1940s while simultaneously incorporating those stereotyped elements into its own story.  This satirical style creates an alternate universe in which, for example, recognizable sci-fi works such as H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds is flipped to become a factual political argument condemning the human colonization of Mars.  This edition is leather-bound with gilt decoration.

Worlds Beyond

Knight, Damon, ed.  Worlds Beyond, Volume 1, Number 1.  New York: Hillman Periodicals Inc., December 1950.

          .  Worlds Beyond, Volume 1, Number 2.  New York: Hillman Periodicals Inc., January 1951.

          .  Worlds Beyond, Volume 1, Number 3.  New York: Hillman Periodicals Inc., February 1951.

Worlds Beyond was a short-lived science-fantasy fiction magazine producing only three volumes from December 1950 to February 1951.  It was edited by science fiction writer Damon Knight and included sci-fi stories by contemporary genre writers such as William F. Temple, C. M. Kornbluth, Jack Vance, William Tenn, Harry Harrison, Lester del Rey, and Poul Anderson.  Most of the stories were reprinted from other sources, but some were new stories making their first appearance in print.  The third issue contains the debut of Harry Harrison's "Rock Diver," which popularized the sci-fi concept of matter penetration, or the ability to pass through solid objects.

Player Piano

Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.  Player Piano.  Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 2004.  This story was first published in 1952.  Player Piano is Vonnegut's first novel.  It was nominated in 1953 for the International Fantasy Award.  In 1954 it was released in paperback and retitled Utopia 14 in an attempt to reach more sci-fi readers.  This edition is leather-bound with gilt decoration.