—Library Journal
“A marvelous mix of classics and rarely seen works, bibliophile's finds and old favorites . . . a treasury in every sense and a treasure!”
-Connie Willis, author of Doomsday Book
The fantastic, the supernatural, the poetic, and the macabre entwine in this incomparable culmination of storytelling. Imaginative stories of wit and intelligence weave through vivid landscapes that are alternately wondrous and terrifying. As major literary figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?from Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Edith Wharton to Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde?these masters of English and American literature created unforgettable tales where goblins and imps comingle with humans from all walks of life.
This deftly curated assemblage of notable classics and unexpected gems from the pre-Tolkien era will captivate and enchant readers. Forerunners of today’s speculative fiction, these are the authors that changed the fantasy genre forever.
—Library Journal
“A marvelous mix of classics and rarely seen works, bibliophile's finds and old favorites . . . a treasury in every sense and a treasure!”
-Connie Willis, author of Doomsday Book
The fantastic, the supernatural, the poetic, and the macabre entwine in this incomparable culmination of storytelling. Imaginative stories of wit and intelligence weave through vivid landscapes that are alternately wondrous and terrifying. As major literary figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?from Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Edith Wharton to Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde?these masters of English and American literature created unforgettable tales where goblins and imps comingle with humans from all walks of life.
This deftly curated assemblage of notable classics and unexpected gems from the pre-Tolkien era will captivate and enchant readers. Forerunners of today’s speculative fiction, these are the authors that changed the fantasy genre forever.
The Treasury of the Fantastic
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Overview
—Library Journal
“A marvelous mix of classics and rarely seen works, bibliophile's finds and old favorites . . . a treasury in every sense and a treasure!”
-Connie Willis, author of Doomsday Book
The fantastic, the supernatural, the poetic, and the macabre entwine in this incomparable culmination of storytelling. Imaginative stories of wit and intelligence weave through vivid landscapes that are alternately wondrous and terrifying. As major literary figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?from Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Edith Wharton to Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde?these masters of English and American literature created unforgettable tales where goblins and imps comingle with humans from all walks of life.
This deftly curated assemblage of notable classics and unexpected gems from the pre-Tolkien era will captivate and enchant readers. Forerunners of today’s speculative fiction, these are the authors that changed the fantasy genre forever.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781616961565 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tachyon Publications |
| Publication date: | 05/16/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 720 |
| File size: | 799 KB |
About the Author
Jacob Weisman is the World Fantasy Award–nominated editor and publisher at Tachyon Publications, which he founded in 1995. He is the series editor for several anthologies, including The Secret History of Fantasy, The Urban Fantasy Anthology, and Crucified Dreams: Tales of Urban Horror. His writing has appeared in The Nation, Realms of Fantasy, the Courier-Journal, Seattle Weekly, the Cooper Point Journal,, and in the college textbook Sport in Contemporary Society.
Read an Excerpt
The Treasury of the Fantastic
Romanticism to Early Twentieth Century Literature
By David Sandner, Jacob Weisman
Tachyon Publications
Copyright © 2013 Jacob Weisman and David SandnerAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61696-096-4
CHAPTER 1
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher. He and William Wordsworth together published The Lyrical Ballads (1798), a foundational poetry collection of the romantic movement.
"Kubla Khan" was written in 1797. Coleridge claimed to have dreamed the poem in an opium-induced reverie. He also claimed the poem was unfinished, because he was interrupted by a man from Porlock knocking at his door, but it is unclear what more the poem might need. What is clear is that Coleridge was nervous about his ground-breaking work of what he called "pure imagination." He showed the poem to friends but didn't publish until 1816 when Lord Byron, among others, talked him into it.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
LORD BYRON
Darkness
Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron, 1788–1824) was born in London. He was probably the best known of the Romantic Poets and lived a dramatic and wildly controversial life. Byron's celebrity began after writing Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and he was dubbed "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," "I awoke one morning," he said, "and found myself famous."
"Darkness" was written in 1816, the same year as the famous "ghost story" contest that led to the creation of Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus (1818) by Mary Shelley and The Vampyre (1819) by John William Polidori. "Darkness" is an apocalyptic, science-fictional vision of the end of the world and a startling example of the romantic interest in "the last man" theme, in which lonely survivors contemplate isolation and death.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless; and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe!
JOHN KEATS
La Belle Dame sans Merci
John Keats (1795–1821) was an English Romantic poet and contemporary of Lord Byron and Mary Shelley. Underappreciated during his short life, Keats's poems, and especially his great odes, such as "Ode on a Nightingale" (1819) and "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819), are now considered some of the finest in English literature. He died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five.
"La Belle Dame sans Merci" exemplifies the romantic interest in creating new, fantastic literary works based on older folk ballads steeped in the supernatural. Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1789) is another famous example. In both works, benighted travelers are overwhelmed by encounters with inexplicable figures that tempt and punish the unwary. The poem exists in two versions. the original, unpublished version is printed here.
I.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
II.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done,
III.
I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
IV.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
V.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
VI.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.
VII.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
"I love thee true."
VIII.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
IX.
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill's side.
X.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—"La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!"
XI.
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.
XII.
And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
WASHINGTON IRVING
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving (1783–1859) was an American-born author. Though he lived for a considerable time in Europe, Irving's works are often set in New York State, his birthplace. His most famous short works are cast as "sketches" or "tales" that employ or imply the fantastic, such as "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was published in 1820 in a collection called The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Set in a superstitious community near the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town (Tarrytown, NY), the story is based on elements from a German folktale. His wry story is an American version of the Romantic interest in retelling and "inventing" ballads and tales that comment upon the superstitious past.
FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER
A pleasing land of drowsy head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye;
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky.
—CASTLE OF INDOLENCE
In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.
I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.
From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.
The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.
Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.
It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.
I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water, which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Treasury of the Fantastic by David Sandner, Jacob Weisman. Copyright © 2013 Jacob Weisman and David Sandner. Excerpted by permission of Tachyon Publications.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction by Peter S. BeagleForeword by David Sandner and Jacob Weisman
“Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Darkness” by Lord Byron
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving
“Peter Rugg, the Missing Man” by William Austin
“The Mortal Immortal” by Mary Shelley
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathanial Hawthorne
“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
“Morte d’Arthur” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
“Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson
“The Golden Key” by George MacDonald
“Carmilla” by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
“Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll
“The Ogre Courting” by Juliana Horatia Ewing
“The Ghostly Rental” by Henry James
“The Dong With the Luminous Nose” by Edward Lear
“The New Mother” by Lucy Lane Clifford
“The Griffin and the Minor Canon” by Frank Stockton
“The Happy Prince” by Oscar Wilde
“The Stolen Child” by W. B. Yeats
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek” by Ambrose Bierce
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman
“The Bottle Imp” by Robert Louis Stevenson
“A Moth: Genus Unknown” by H. G. Wells
“Cassilda’s Song” by Robert W. Chambers
“The Library Window” by Margaret Oliphant
“The True Lover” by A. E. Houseman
“The Blind God” Laurence Houseman
“The Reluctant Dragon” by Kenneth Grahame
“The Book of Beasts” by Edith Nesbit
“The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacobs
“Casting the Runes” by M. R. James
“They” by Rudyard Kipling
“The Sword of Welleran” by Lord Dunsany
“The Celestial Omnibus” by E. M. Forster
“The Eyes” by Edith Wharton
“The Ghost Ship” by Richard Middleton
“The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare
“Red-Peach-Blossom Inlet” by Kenneth Morris
“The Mysterious Stranger” by Mark Twain
“Enoch Soames” by Max Beerbohm
“Climax for a Ghost Story” by I. A. Ireland
“A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf
What People are Saying About This
"A marvelous mixture of classics and rarely seen works, bibliophiles' finds and old favorites. This Treasury of the Fantastic is a treasury in every sense, and a treasure!" —Connie Willis, author, Doomsday Book
"The fantasy tradition in English and American literature is rich and varied and strange. This is the book to read to find out what you never knew you never knew you needed." —David G. Hartwell, editor, The Year's Best Fantasy series