Anthologies
Is it the end of the English novel? Has it grown predictable and unadventurous? Granta 3 collects work from writers and critics which points to the fact that our terms have grown inadequate: it is the end of the English novel; but it is also the beginning - quite possibly an extremely important beginning - of British fiction.
One of the most important consequences of the temporary disappearance of the Time Literary Supplement , at the time of the Times Newspapers dispute, was the London Review of Books . This fortnightly review, run in its early months in tandem with the New York Review of Books and then independently, has attracted writing of exceptional weight and brilliance. Now an anthology brings back some of the highlights of the remarkable first two years of the London Review of Books .
'Wicked, wayward or otherwise, Carter's classic collection is a very erudite expression of girl power' MINA HOLLAND, GUARDIAN 'One of the century's greatest writers' SUNDAY TIMES This bestselling collection of stories extols the female virtues of discontent, sexual disruptiveness and bad manners. These are subversive tales by Ama Ata Aidoo, Jane Bowles, Angela Carter, Colette, Bessie Head, Jamaica Kincaid and Katherine Mansfield among others. They all have one thing in common; the wish to restore adventuresses and revolutionaries to their rightful position as models for all women. Reflecting the wide-ranging intelligence and deliciously anarchic taste of Angela Carter, some of these stories celebrate toughness and resilience, some of them low cunning: all of them are about not being nice.
In Elizabeth Jolley's "The Last Crop," a seemingly guileless woman cons a man out of his land. In Leonora Carrinton's "The Debutante," a young girl sends a hyena to her coming-out ball, with disastrous results. The title character in Frances Towers's "Violet" uses her talent for witchcraft with wicked intention. Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" faces a litany of her mother's strictures and admonishments, and Suniti Namjoshi's bittersweet fables suggest that nothing a woman does will ever be really right. But whether these women are bad or good, evil or benign, guilty or innocent, calculating or naive, they are not victims. None of them suffers passively at the hands of men. Each manages to confront her circumstances and sometimes, though not always, triumph over them.
The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories, edited by novelist and critic Malcolm Bradbury, is a collection of the finest short stories from our best loved authors, including Samuel Beckett, Graham Greene, William Golding, Kingsley Amis, Doris Lessing, Muriel Spark, J. G. Ballard, William Trevor, Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Rose Tremain, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift and Kazuo Ishiguro. 'The short story has become one of the major forms of modern literary expression - in some ways the most modern of them all.' The story of the British short story since the Second World War is one of change and revolution and this powerful and moving collection brilliantly demonstrates the evolution of the form. Containing thirty-four of the most widely regarded postwar British writers, it features tales of love and crime, comedy and the supernatural, the traditional as well as the experimental. This many-storied, many-splendored collection is a brilliant portrait of the generation of writers who have immediately influenced the brightest, sharpest and most intriguing writers who continue to emerge today. Malcolm Bradbury was a novelist, critic, television dramatist and professor of American studies and creative writing. He was awarded the CBE in 1991 for his services to Literature and was knighted in the 2000 New Year's Honours List. He died in 2000.
Gathering together deliciously chilling tales from the three highly-acclaimed volumes of Virago ghost stories, this collection features stories by A. S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Charlotte Brontë, Antonia Fraser, Penelope Lively, Ruth Rendell, Edith Wharton, and many more. Here lost loves, past enmities, and unwanted memories mingle with the inexplicable as unquiet souls return to repay kindnesses, settle scores, and haunt the imagination. All of the writers demonstrate a subtle power to delight and chill at the same time as they explore the ghostly margins of the supernatural.
Fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations of the ordinary men and women whose labour created our world." -- From the Introduction There was a time when fairy tales weren't meant just for children -- they were part of an oral folklore tradition passed down through generations. This volume of sixty enchanting and enduring tales, collected by master storyteller Angela Carter, revives the industry, eccentricity, spirit, and worldly wisdom of women in preindustrial times. Drawn from narrative traditions all around the world -- from ancient Swahili legends to Appalachian tall tales to European spirit stories and more -- these tales together comprise a unique feminine mythology. Angela Carter (1940-1992) was widely known for her novels, short stories, and journalism. Her many books include The Magic Toy Shop, The Sadeian Woman, Nights at the Circus, Fireworks, and Saints and Strangers.
Gathers literary fairy tales by authors from Apuleius, Charles Perrault, Wilhelm Grimm, and Nathaniel Hawthorne to James Thurber, Italo Calvino, Stanislaw Lem, and Jane Yolen
Collects fantasy, horror, fairy tales, and gothic stories chosen from the past year, including works by Ursula K. LeGuin, Neil Gaiman, and Bill Lewis.
Collects fantasy, horror, fairy tales, and gothic stories chosen from the past year, including works by Ursula K. LeGuin, Neil Gaiman, and Bill Lewis.
Once upon a time fairy tales weren''t meant just for children, and neither is Angela Carter''s Book of Fairy Tales. This stunning collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales and hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries all around the world- from the Arctic to Asia - and no dippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead, we have pretty maids and old crones; crafty women and bad girls; enchantresses and midwives; rascal aunts and odd sisters. This fabulous celebration of strong minds, low cunning, black arts and dirty tricks could only have been collected by the unique and much-missed Angela Carter. Illustrated throughout with original woodcuts.
Open up Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen and enter a fantastic world of fairy tales, a world of mischievous maids, wily women, enchantresses, midwives, and crones. Here is a treasure trove of tales that could only have been put together by the celebrated Angela Carter, whom Salman Rushdie called the "high sorceress" and the "benevolent witch queen" of English literature. With an eye for the bizarre, an ear for the eccentric, and a longstanding fascination with the female dominated tradition of story telling, Carter has chosen forty-five tales from twenty-three cultures that revel in women's cunning and high spirits, wisdom and imagination. Young women outwit men, magicians, even the devil himself. Old women bring enchantment, luck, and sound advice. Midwives talk to frogs, girls marry snakes, justice is almost always done, and things are not always what they seem in Strange Things Sometimes Still Happen. Complemented by exquisite woodcuts by Corinna Sargood, this generous offering of wit, witchery, and old-fashioned common sense will delight Angela Carter's many fans, and thoroughly entrance anyone who knows that fairy tales were never meant just for children.
The stories of magic and transformation that we call fairy tales are among the oldest known forms of literature, and many the most popular. "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Sleeping Beauty," "Little Red Ridinghood"--these ageless tales seem to have been written an almost magically long time ago. Yet fairy tales are still being created to this very day. And while they are principally directed to children and have child protagonists, these modern fairy tales, like the classics, have messages to those of all ages. In The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales , Alison Lurie has collected forty tales that date from the late nineteenth century up to the present. Here are trolls and princesses, magic and mayhem, morals to be told and lessons to be learned--all the elements of the classic fairy tale, in new and fantastical trappings. In Charles Dickens's "The Magic Fishbone," we find an unusually pragmatic princess who uses her one wish only after she has tried to solve her family's problems through hard work. Angela Carter's "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" is a "Beauty and the Beast" tale with a contemporary twist, in which Beauty leaves Beast to live the high life, becoming a society brat who "smiled at herself in mirrors too much." And in T.H. White's "The Troll," we find out how his father killed the troll that tried to eat him. In these enchanting pages we also see how modern writers have taken the classic fairy tale and adapted it to their times in a variety of ways. Francis Browne, for example, takes a poke at Victorian standards of beauty in "The Story of Fairyfoot," about a young prince who is cast out of the kingdom of Stumpinghame because, unlike the fashion of the town, his feet are too small. Some writers, such as Ursula Le Guin, have taken familiar myths and turned them upside down. In Le Guin's "The Wife's Story," a mother sees the horrible transformation of her husband into "the hateful one", and then watches her sister and neighbors mob and kill this "creature whose hair had begun to come away all over his body...the eyes gone blue...staring at me out of that flat, soft, white face." And L.F. Baum's "The Queen of Quok," contains a castle and royal characters in a kingdom run by common sense and small-town American values. At one point the boy king of Quok has to borrow a dime from his counsellor to buy a ham sandwich, and greed transforms his young queen-to-be into a haggard old woman. With tales from the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde, Carl Sandburg, James Thurber, Donald Barthelme, Louise Erdrich, and many more, The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales brings us through the modern-day world of the supernatural, the mystical, the moral, and reminds us that fairy tales are still very much alive.
Fantasy has come to mean different things to different people - for some it is a descent into the unconscious, an expression of repressed fears or desires; for others it is an exploration of new territories, frightening and fertile landscapes inhabited by playful and provocative beings who draw the reader into a fascinating web of morality and myth. In her challenging Introduction, Joanna Russ describes Fantasy as 'the most realistic of all the arts, expressing as it does the contents of human souls directly'. This anthology aims to show that Fantasy has also been an important vehicle for women, who have used it to express their creative diversity, without having to be boxed in and categorized by a male-dominated literary establishment.
More than forty stories and poems are included in this anthology of the year's finest horror and fantasy fiction, accompanied by a roundup of the year's fantasy films and a guide to the year's notable fiction. 20,000 first printing.
From the back cover: An exquisite, powerful and resonant collection by the very best contemporary women writers. From loss to forgiveness, love to remembrance harmony to independence, it gives myriad perspectives on women's lives - a refreshing and stimulating summer read.
Stories to Get You Through the Night is a collection to remedy life's stresses and strains. Inside you will find writing from the greatest of classic and contemporary authors; stories that will brighten and inspire, move and delight, soothe and restore in equal measure. This is an anthology to devour or to savour at your leisure, each story a perfectly imagined whole to be read and reread, and each a journey to transport the reader away from the everyday. Immersed in the pages you will follow lovers to midnight trysts, accompany old friends on new adventures, be thrilled by ghostly delights, overcome heartbreak, loss and longing, and be warmed by tales of redemption, and of hope and happiness. Whether as a cure for insomnia, to while away the hours on a midnight journey, or as a brief moment of escapism before you turn in, the stories contained in this remarkable collection provide the perfect antidote to the frenetic pace of modern life - a rich and calming selection guaranteed to see you through the night. Featuring stories by: Katherine Mansfield, Alice Munro, Anton Chekhov, Oscar Wilde, Haruki Murakami, Wilkie Collins, Kate Chopin, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Brothers Grimm, John Cheever, Arthur Conan Doyle, Virginia Woolf, Rudyard Kipling, Helen Simpson, Richard Yates, James Lasdun, Martin Amis, Angela Carter, Somerset Maugham and Julian Barnes
Werewolves and shapeshifters have morphed into the latest pop culture stars. This mind-bending collection includes thirty-two new and classic stories from the best writers in the genre Werewolves and shapeshifters are the latest literary craze following vampires and zombies. The phenomenal success of the Twilight series, and the blockbuster movies that followed, has spawned a new obsession with these supernatural beings. From John Skipp, the master of horror, comes this definitive collection of thirty-two classic and new stories, written by favorites of the genre including George R.R. Martin, Charlaine Harris, Chuck Palahniuk, Neil Gaiman, H.P. Lovecraft, Joe R. Lansdale, Angela Carter, David J. Schow, Kathe Koja, Bentley Little, and more. Skipp provides fascinating insight and details, through two nonfiction essays, into the history and presence of shape shifting in popular culture. Resources at the end of the book include lists of the genre's best long-form fiction, as well as movies, websites, and writers.
Fathers: A Literary Anthology is a collection of 49 essays and poems focusing on fathers. With personal essays and poems by 5 Nobel laureates, 7 Pulitzer winners, and writers such as Angela Carter, Thomas Hardy, Franz Kafka. Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Virginia Woolf, the anthology is full of wit, wisdom and insight. To read authors such as James Baldwin, Annie Dillard, Doris Lessing, Sharon Olds, and Philip Roth as they explore aspects of their fathers is to open maps of possibility.
An anthology of erotic fiction by great female writers, with stories by: Kathy Acker, Isabel Allende, Laila Baalabaki, Simone de Beauvoir, Svetlana Boym, Angela Carter, Kate Chopin, Colette, Elizabeth Cook, Candas Jane Dorsey, Carol Emshwiller, L.A. Hall, Radclyffe Hall, Bessie Head, Siv Holm, Evelyn Lau, La Marquise de Mannoury d'Ectot, Katherine Mansfield, Ann Oakley, Iva Pekárková, Claire Rabe, Alifa Rifaat, Joanna Russ, May Sinclair, Verena Stefan, Gertrude Stein, Nicole Ward Jouve, Anna- Elisabeth Weirauch, Edith Wharton, Amy Yamada. Tales of forbidden lust, illicit desires, the twin hungers of loneliness and lust and the complexities of intimacy: all are explored in this fascinating anthology of stories on erotic themes. Spanning the last hundred years The Penguin Book of Erotic Stories by Women brings together tales that capture the sexual mores of their ages. This is an anthology that acknowledges and confirms a woman's right to shape and define her own sexuality, rather than having it forced on her by men. 'Sexy, scholarly and full of surprises' Independent 'An astounding array of accomplished sexual writing . . . thoughtful and original' Lynne Truss, Sunday Times 'A fascinating collection . . . from fairytale whimsy to postpunk invective, from fables of oppression to those of liberation, it is full of unforeseen delights, surprising us into reshaping our thoughts about familiar writers, about sexual politics and about the meaning of erotica itself' Independent
Profound, lyrical, shocking, wise: the short story is capable of almost anything. This collection of 100 of the finest stories ever written ranges from the essential to the unexpected, the traditional to the surreal. Wide in scope, both beautiful and vast, this is the perfect companion for any fiction lover. Here are childhood favourites and neglected masters, twenty-first century wits and national treasures, Man Booker Prize winners and Nobel Laureates. Featuring an all-star cast of authors, including Kate Atkinson, Julian Barnes, Angela Carter, Anton Chekhov, Richmal Crompton, Charles Dickens, Roald Dahl, Penelope Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert, Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, Ian McEwan, Alice Munro, V.S. Pritchett, Thomas Pynchon, Muriel Spark and Colm Tóibín, THAT GLIMPSE OF TRUTH is the biggest, most handsome collection of short fiction in print today.
Sisters of the Revolution gathers a highly curated selection of feminist speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and more) chosen by one of the most respected editorial teams in speculative literature today, the award-winning Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Including stories from the 1970s to the present day, the collection seeks to expand the conversation about feminism while engaging the reader in a wealth of imaginative ideas. From the literary heft of Angela Carter to the searing power of Octavia Butler, Sisters of the Revolution gathers daring examples of speculative fiction’s engagement with feminism. Dark, satirical stories such as Eileen Gunn’s “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” and the disturbing horror of James Tiptree Jr.’s “The Screwfly Solution” reveal the charged intensity at work in the field. Including new, emerging voices like Nnedi Okorafor and featuring international contributions from Angelica Gorodischer and many more, Sisters of the Revolution seeks to expand the ideas of both contemporary fiction and feminism to new fronts. Moving from the fantastic to the futuristic, the subtle to the surreal, these stories will provoke thoughts and emotions about feminism like no other book available today. Contributors include: Angela Carter, Angelica Gorodischer, Anne Richter, Carol Emshwiller, Catherynne M. Valente, Eileen Gunn, Eleanor Arnason, Elizabeth Vonarburg, Hiromi Goto, James Tiptree Jr., Joanna Russ, Karin Tidbeck, Kelley Eskridge, Kelly Barnhill, Kit Reed, L. Timmel Duchamp, Leena Krohn, Leonora Carrington, Nalo Hopkinson, Nnedi Okorafor, Octavia Butler, Pamela Sargent, Pat Murphy, Rachel Swirsky, Rose Lemberg, Susan Palwick, Tanith Lee, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Vandana Singh.
‘This is, after all, the season of abandonment, of the suspension of vitality, a long cessation of vigour in which we must cultivate our stoicism. Everything had put on the desolate smile of winter.’ Curl up with Stories for Winter , a collection of seasonal tales to sustain you through the long, dark evenings. Originally written and first published in the twentieth century, the fourteen stories in this new anthology bring together the creative minds of Angela Carter, Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Berridge, Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Taylor, Mary Angela Dickens, Elizabeth Bowen and Kate Roberts. A woman waits for her lover across a flooded landscape; another braves a snowstorm for a stranger; while a young girl’s unseasonal visit to the seaside ends in a shattering revelation. Exploring themes of loss and loneliness, resilience and renewal, this collection brings together many renowned female writers of the short-story form. In the spirit of the Women Writers series, these stories first appeared in books and periodicals in the twentieth century.