Synopses & Reviews
“The true theme of the nineteenth-century fantastic tale is the reality of what we see: to believe or not to believe in phantasmagoric apparitions, to glimpse another world, enchanted or infernal, behind everyday appearances.” — from Calvino’s introduction to Fantastic Tales
Vampires, ghosts, and other horrors abound in this collection of nineteenth-century fantastic literature, selected and edited by Italo Calvino, a twentieth-century master of the speculative. This posthumously published anthology of enchanting, uncanny, terrifying, and immortally entertaining short stories includes E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman,” Nikolai Gogol’s “The Nose,” Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Bottle Imp,” and many more, each with an introduction by Calvino. Fantastic Tales is a delight for the mind and a feast for the senses.
“Impressive and utterly pleasing . . . Each story [Calvino] picks is absorbing, unique, and continually surprising.” — Los Angeles Times
Review
“A wonderfully written book, ironical, cerebral, elegant . . . distinguished by bold, inflected language and ornate, indeed often bloody, imagery.” —
Joyce Carol Oates, The New York Times Book Review
“The tales are retold by Angela Carter with all her supple and intoxicating bravura.” —The New York Review of Books
“She was, among other things, a quirky, original, and baroque stylist, a trait especially marked in The Bloody Chamber—her vocabulary a mix of finely tuned phrase, luscious adjective, witty aphorism, and hearty, up-theirs vulgarity.” —Margaret Atwood, The Observer
“She writes a prose that lends itself to magnificent set pieces of fastidious sensuality . . . dreams, myths, fairy tales, metamorphoses, the unruly unconscious, epic journeys, and a highly sensual celebration of sexuality in both its most joyous and darkest manifestations.” —Ian McEwan
“The best horror writer of the 20th century youve probably never heard of . . . Her most celebrated book is a high gothic collection of short stories called The Bloody Chamber that you should read immediately if the genre holds any appeal for you.” —New York magazines Vulture
“Since I first came across The Bloody Chamber, I have kept a copy with me wherever I have been living. . . . The things that I needed, when I was beginning to think about writing short stories, were the things that I found in The Bloody Chamber. . . . Reading Carter, each time, [is] electrifying. It [lights] up the readerly brain and all the writerly nerves. . . . What we dont have, of course, is any more Angela Carter stories. And how I yearn for exactly this.” —Kelly Link, from the Introduction
Synopsis
An absorbing collection of dark, sensual, and fantastic stories inspired by the fairy tales and legends of Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast, vampires, werewolves, and more.
Synopsis
A collection of short stories compiled, edited, and introduced by Italo Calvino — including works of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Balzac, Gogol, Poe, and many others — surveying the phenomenon of the fantastic in 19th-century European literature.
Synopsis
A twentieth-century master of the fantastic pays homage to his nineteenth-century predecessors with this posthumously published anthology of enchanting, uncanny, terrifying, and deliciously entertaining short stories by the likes of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Gogol, and Poe. Calvino compiled and edited this collection and provides an individual introduction to each story, making Fantastic Tales not only an invaluable classroom resource, but also an accessible guide to the subject for general readers.
Synopsis
For the 75th anniversary of her birth, a Deluxe Edition of the master of the literary supernaturals most celebrated book Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of Neil Gaiman, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, and other contemporary masters of supernatural fiction. In her masterpiece, The Bloody Chamberwhich includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordans 1984 movie The Company of Wolvesshe breathed new life into familiar fairy tales and legends in a style steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition. This edition features a new introduction by Kelly Link, the Nebula and World Fantasy Awardwining author, one of a new generation of writers whove been inspired by Carters brand of fantastical, subversive, boundlessly imaginative fiction.
About the Author
ITALO CALVINO’s superb storytelling gifts earned him international renown and a reputation as “one of the world's best fabulists” (New York Times Book Review). He is the author of numerous works of fiction, as well as essays, criticism, and literary anthologies. Born in Cuba in 1923, Calvino was raised in Italy, where he lived most of his life. At the time of his death, in Siena in 1985, he was the most translated contemporary Italian writer.