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gusabus's review
5.0
Finished, and very happy! Another great anthology that I enjoyed even more than The Big Book Of Modern Fantasy, mostly because the stories were so different to anything I've ever read in the realm of fantasy. It had fairytales, Rip Van Winkle, Paul Bunyan, all kinds of things. Highly recommended for all fantasy lovers!
pufforrohk's review
4.0
Very interesting collection of almost 100 fantastical stories from the beginning of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. As with any collection, there are stories I like more and those I like less, but it's fascinating seeing how the meaning of fantastic fiction changes through the 150 years covered by this collection. The editors tried to diversify the stories here collected, by taking them from different cultures, languages, and types of fantastic fiction.
Some personal highlights:
The Nest of Nightingales by Theophile Gautier
The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
The Remarkable Rocket by Oscar Wilde
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
Sowbread by Grazia Deledda
Strange News from Another Star by Hermann Hesse
The Alligator War by Horacio Quiroga
Talkative Domovoi by Alexandr Grin
The Town of Cats by Hagiwara Sakutaro
The Debutante by Leonora Carrington
Leaf by Niggle by J.R.R. Tolkien
Some personal highlights:
The Nest of Nightingales by Theophile Gautier
The Nose by Nikolai Gogol
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
The Remarkable Rocket by Oscar Wilde
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
Sowbread by Grazia Deledda
Strange News from Another Star by Hermann Hesse
The Alligator War by Horacio Quiroga
Talkative Domovoi by Alexandr Grin
The Town of Cats by Hagiwara Sakutaro
The Debutante by Leonora Carrington
Leaf by Niggle by J.R.R. Tolkien
annieb123's review
5.0
Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.
The Big Book of Classic Fantasy is a massive anthology of classic speculative fiction (as defined by editors Ann & Jeff Vandermeer). Released 2nd July 2019 by Knopf Doubleday on their Vintage imprint, it's 848 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.
The sheer breadth and volume of this anthology is impressive. I can't imagine the legal and practical ramifications of securing even limited publication rights to the stories contained in this volume, 14 of which apparently hadn't ever previously been translated into English (and one at least which hadn't ever been previously published, full stop). The editors include a valuable introduction which touches on their criteria for inclusion in this collection including what fantasy is, for their purposes, how they limited their choices, what time period they chose (from the early 1800s to WW2) and more.
The group of authors represented in this volume is mind boggling and includes Mary Shelly, Jules Verne, Oscar Wilde, Chesterton, Kafka, Nabokov, Tolkien, Grimm, Irving, Dickens, Poe, Melville, Rosetti, Andersen; around 100 total. Some of them are extremely well known, some of them less so, all are worthy. I read a great deal and wasn't previously familiar with more than 50% of the content, probably much less.
This would make a phenomenal resource book for the home or other library or a textbook or support resource for a course on speculative fiction. I sat down and read it cover to cover over a period of weeks, interspersed with other reading and think that digesting stories one at a time worked better for me than devouring them whole. They're a very varied selection and there's literally something to appeal to every reader.
Beautifully curated, phenomenally eclectic, and classic. Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
The Big Book of Classic Fantasy is a massive anthology of classic speculative fiction (as defined by editors Ann & Jeff Vandermeer). Released 2nd July 2019 by Knopf Doubleday on their Vintage imprint, it's 848 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats.
The sheer breadth and volume of this anthology is impressive. I can't imagine the legal and practical ramifications of securing even limited publication rights to the stories contained in this volume, 14 of which apparently hadn't ever previously been translated into English (and one at least which hadn't ever been previously published, full stop). The editors include a valuable introduction which touches on their criteria for inclusion in this collection including what fantasy is, for their purposes, how they limited their choices, what time period they chose (from the early 1800s to WW2) and more.
The group of authors represented in this volume is mind boggling and includes Mary Shelly, Jules Verne, Oscar Wilde, Chesterton, Kafka, Nabokov, Tolkien, Grimm, Irving, Dickens, Poe, Melville, Rosetti, Andersen; around 100 total. Some of them are extremely well known, some of them less so, all are worthy. I read a great deal and wasn't previously familiar with more than 50% of the content, probably much less.
This would make a phenomenal resource book for the home or other library or a textbook or support resource for a course on speculative fiction. I sat down and read it cover to cover over a period of weeks, interspersed with other reading and think that digesting stories one at a time worked better for me than devouring them whole. They're a very varied selection and there's literally something to appeal to every reader.
Beautifully curated, phenomenally eclectic, and classic. Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
haljonesy's review
3.0
I absolutely enjoyed this book! Ann and Jeff VanderMeer do really great anthologies, and I was thrilled when I saw they were doing a fantasy collection. Their "Sisters of the Revolution" anthology was wonderful, and this one also lived up to my expectations. The selections they made for inclusion were very good (though I might have chosen "Farmer Giles of Ham" as the Tolkien piece, but that's just me) and it was fascinating to read older examples of fantasy. I really hope that the VanderMeers do more anthologies in the future because I love their recommendations.
lamusadelils's review
5.0
Al fin lo terminé.
Es enorme y contiene una gran variedad de historias que ejemplifican la evolución del género en lo que se considera el periodo 'clasico'.
He leído y hojeado otros libros similares y estaban enfocados casi siempre en una misma narrativa, con obvios sesgos occidentales y hasta de sexo. Ann y Jeff Vandermeer aceptan que igualmente tienen sesgos pero han hecho un buen intento de diversificar su selección, lo que lleva a una lectura mucho más interesante, matizada y dónde probablemente hasta las personas con hábitos lectores más voraces encuentren una que otra historia nueva.
Aunque para leer el libro no necesariamente hay que ir en orden o terminarlo de una sola vez, hay algo hermoso en ir avanzando de manera cronológica y relacionando cada historia a su contexto. Creo que se pueden notar patrones interesantes de temas más frecuentes en ciertos periodos, en como ciertos eventos históricos y los cambios de pensamiento o tecnología comenzaron a afectar la manera en la que se pensaba en la fantasía. De igual manera, se detectan algunos temas que parecían olvidados o que fueron inusuales en sus tiempos y renacieron mucho después.
Finalmente, la historia de la fantasía es la historia de la imaginación humana, de sus miedos y anhelos, de su forma de interpretar los límites de la realidad y de usar símbolos. Es imposible realmente estudiar y plasmar en un solo tomo todo lo que la fantasía abarca, incluso en un periodo delimitado. Es por ello que el intento, desde el principio aceptado como incompleto, de la pareja Vandermeer es tan admirable.
Es enorme y contiene una gran variedad de historias que ejemplifican la evolución del género en lo que se considera el periodo 'clasico'.
He leído y hojeado otros libros similares y estaban enfocados casi siempre en una misma narrativa, con obvios sesgos occidentales y hasta de sexo. Ann y Jeff Vandermeer aceptan que igualmente tienen sesgos pero han hecho un buen intento de diversificar su selección, lo que lleva a una lectura mucho más interesante, matizada y dónde probablemente hasta las personas con hábitos lectores más voraces encuentren una que otra historia nueva.
Aunque para leer el libro no necesariamente hay que ir en orden o terminarlo de una sola vez, hay algo hermoso en ir avanzando de manera cronológica y relacionando cada historia a su contexto. Creo que se pueden notar patrones interesantes de temas más frecuentes en ciertos periodos, en como ciertos eventos históricos y los cambios de pensamiento o tecnología comenzaron a afectar la manera en la que se pensaba en la fantasía. De igual manera, se detectan algunos temas que parecían olvidados o que fueron inusuales en sus tiempos y renacieron mucho después.
Finalmente, la historia de la fantasía es la historia de la imaginación humana, de sus miedos y anhelos, de su forma de interpretar los límites de la realidad y de usar símbolos. Es imposible realmente estudiar y plasmar en un solo tomo todo lo que la fantasía abarca, incluso en un periodo delimitado. Es por ello que el intento, desde el principio aceptado como incompleto, de la pareja Vandermeer es tan admirable.
wittyandsarcasticbookclub's review
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This will be available to purchase on July second.
In case it isn’t painfully obvious based on my other blog posts, I love fantasy of every kind. I was so excited to delve into this collection of stories, some that are well-known to me, and many others that I read for the first time.
And let me tell you; this selection is vast. The editors went through a ton of effort to gather a varied representation of an enormous genre. There were the usual culprits: the Bros. Grimm, Tolkein, Hans Christian Andersen. It was great to see them all gathered in one place. But what makes this book stand out are the surprising contributions: Louisa May Alcott, Tolstoy, and even Kafka made appearances.
I loved that there are stories from all over the world. It was fantastic to see the differences- and similarities- between the fantastical tales. It took me longer than I expected to finish this book, simply because there’s so much to digest and I didn’t want to rush it. This is a book to be savored, one that I would recommend owning so that you can return to it time and again.
In case it isn’t painfully obvious based on my other blog posts, I love fantasy of every kind. I was so excited to delve into this collection of stories, some that are well-known to me, and many others that I read for the first time.
And let me tell you; this selection is vast. The editors went through a ton of effort to gather a varied representation of an enormous genre. There were the usual culprits: the Bros. Grimm, Tolkein, Hans Christian Andersen. It was great to see them all gathered in one place. But what makes this book stand out are the surprising contributions: Louisa May Alcott, Tolstoy, and even Kafka made appearances.
I loved that there are stories from all over the world. It was fantastic to see the differences- and similarities- between the fantastical tales. It took me longer than I expected to finish this book, simply because there’s so much to digest and I didn’t want to rush it. This is a book to be savored, one that I would recommend owning so that you can return to it time and again.
projectmayhem7's review
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.
So this is a great compendium, and one I’ll definitely buy when it’s released, but it has flaws. I appreciate the variety of stories here, most of which I had never read, but a lot of them didn’t have satisfying endings and they’re all super weird. I love that they’re weird, but some of the endings annoyed me. I think a lot of it has to do with them being translated to English. Overall, I think this is an awesome collection of classic fantasy, fairy tales and otherwise. I don’t usually like to read eBooks, so that could have had something to do with it not being a 5 star for me. I’ll have to get the print copy to be sure.
At the beginning of this ARC it says to please not quote anything until I check it against the finished book when it’s published, so that kind of limits my review. I’ll go back and add quotes from my notes after it’s published. I’ll also probably go back and add more about different stories, but I’ll have to wait for a lot of them. Most of my notes for the stories I’m leaving off need quotes to go with them.
A few notes on random stories:
The Queen’s Son by Bettina von Arnim:
Very odd story, and an interesting choice for the first story in the book. A queen is pregnant for 7 years before the king throws her out to live with the wild beasts of the forest because he thinks god is punishing her (and he hates her ugly bloated body…yes, that’s in there). She eventually gives birth, alone, in the woods, and something interesting happens. The ending is pretty anticlimactic honestly, even though I can appreciate the bizarreness of this story. Not bad, just not great either. It’s really interesting up until the very end, even though the wording is weird and detached throughout. I think part of the problem lies with the translation from German to English.
Hans-My-Hedgehog by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm:
What a strange little tale. I actually loved it, up until the very last sentence, which didn’t fit and kind of annoyed me. It backpedals on the moral of the story. Basically, the townspeople mock this guy because he doesn’t have any kids, so he makes some joke about having a hedgehog kid. But then his wife has a baby who’s born with the head of a hedgehog. This hedgehog boy is abused and neglected by his family until the day he decides to leave, atop a rooster’s back. Some odd things happen that are actually pretty interesting, and the fairy tale vibe is definitely there. There’s a moral along the lines of “catch more flies with honey” and “be kind, or else,” and there is a happy ending, but the last line just messes it up for me.
The Story of the Hard Nut by E.T.A. Hoffmann:
Apparently, this story is an excerpt from the author’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” which the ballet is based on. Bizarrely humorous story that is pretty dark. It has to do with a curse of sorts, one cast by a mouse lady (who claims to be a queen related to the human king). This curse turns the most beautiful princess baby into a hideous human with a huge deformed head and a tiny body. All of this happens due to a pretty ridiculous sausage party mishap. Yes, I mean an actual sausage party thrown by the king and queen. I liked it, but there it's not a happy story, even though the ending is supposed to make us think there might be a happy ending someday.
The Nest of Nightingales by Theophile Gautier:
Again, very anticlimactic. Two hermit cousins have otherworldly singing abilities, and they teach 3 orphan birds their way of singing after the bird parent dies while trying to compete against the girls in a singing competition. Not my cup of tea and maybe my least favorite story in the book.
The Will-o’-the-Wisps are in Town by Hans Christian Andersen:
A fairy tale about fairy tales, luck, and poetry in bottle. Oh, and a Bog Witch who tells a story within a story. It’s interesting because I can see how he might have made this as a way of describing his writer’s block. The main reason I think this story was better than most is because there’s an actual ending that makes sense, and it’s even kind of funny in a way that’s hard to describe. I hadn’t read this fairy tale by Andersen before, so that alone was exciting. I love his stuff.
Looking-Glass House (Excerpt from Through the Looking-Glass) by Lewis Carroll:
I can’t help but love Lewis Carroll. The Big Book of Classic Fantasy calls his writing style “nonsense literature,” which I love. This story is the first chapter from his second book, and I’m sure you’ll be familiar with it.
The Goophered Grapevine by Charles W. Chestnutt:
I read this story in college actually, and reading it again I see that it holds up. It has a special writing style that includes the use of dialect writing. It’s stories within a story and it involves a plantation and a former slave, a “goophered” (cursed) vineyard, and a conjure woman who practices magic. There’s magic in the tale, but it’s not of the variety I’m used to. This is not a fairy tale, at least not to me, and it’s slower than the others, but it’s wonderfully written.
The Bee-Man of Orn by Frank R. Stockton:
Great little story with a good moral.
The Ensouled Violin by H.P. Blavatsky:
Black magic, sign me up! I really enjoyed this one, as ridiculous as it was. Darker than a lot of the other stories here.
The Fulness of Life by Edith Wharton:
Not for me. I get the sentiment, it’s lovely in its sadness and morals, but things like this usually don’t grab me. Marriage, regrets, blah blah blah.
The Plattner Story by H.G. Wells:
Very descriptive, in Wells fashion, but it’s pushing it to say that this is fantasy. A man is thrown into another dimension and meets aliens. I enjoyed it, but not my favorite.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka:
One of my all time favorites. If you haven’t read this, you are missing out on a this unnerving, dark fantasy story starring a roach person (or is it?). There’s a great hidden meaning here. I’m glad this was included in the collection of stories.
Uncle Monday by Zora Neale Hurston:
This is another story I remember from college. I like Hurston and I did enjoy this story. It’s about a mysterious hoodoo conjurer, singing stones, and magical snakes. It reads like a bogeyman legend to me, and the story itself isn’t in the style I usually like, but Hurston is a great writer.
(more to come)
So this is a great compendium, and one I’ll definitely buy when it’s released, but it has flaws. I appreciate the variety of stories here, most of which I had never read, but a lot of them didn’t have satisfying endings and they’re all super weird. I love that they’re weird, but some of the endings annoyed me. I think a lot of it has to do with them being translated to English. Overall, I think this is an awesome collection of classic fantasy, fairy tales and otherwise. I don’t usually like to read eBooks, so that could have had something to do with it not being a 5 star for me. I’ll have to get the print copy to be sure.
At the beginning of this ARC it says to please not quote anything until I check it against the finished book when it’s published, so that kind of limits my review. I’ll go back and add quotes from my notes after it’s published. I’ll also probably go back and add more about different stories, but I’ll have to wait for a lot of them. Most of my notes for the stories I’m leaving off need quotes to go with them.
A few notes on random stories:
The Queen’s Son by Bettina von Arnim:
Very odd story, and an interesting choice for the first story in the book. A queen is pregnant for 7 years before the king throws her out to live with the wild beasts of the forest because he thinks god is punishing her (and he hates her ugly bloated body…yes, that’s in there). She eventually gives birth, alone, in the woods, and something interesting happens. The ending is pretty anticlimactic honestly, even though I can appreciate the bizarreness of this story. Not bad, just not great either. It’s really interesting up until the very end, even though the wording is weird and detached throughout. I think part of the problem lies with the translation from German to English.
Hans-My-Hedgehog by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm:
What a strange little tale. I actually loved it, up until the very last sentence, which didn’t fit and kind of annoyed me. It backpedals on the moral of the story. Basically, the townspeople mock this guy because he doesn’t have any kids, so he makes some joke about having a hedgehog kid. But then his wife has a baby who’s born with the head of a hedgehog. This hedgehog boy is abused and neglected by his family until the day he decides to leave, atop a rooster’s back. Some odd things happen that are actually pretty interesting, and the fairy tale vibe is definitely there. There’s a moral along the lines of “catch more flies with honey” and “be kind, or else,” and there is a happy ending, but the last line just messes it up for me.
The Story of the Hard Nut by E.T.A. Hoffmann:
Apparently, this story is an excerpt from the author’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” which the ballet is based on. Bizarrely humorous story that is pretty dark. It has to do with a curse of sorts, one cast by a mouse lady (who claims to be a queen related to the human king). This curse turns the most beautiful princess baby into a hideous human with a huge deformed head and a tiny body. All of this happens due to a pretty ridiculous sausage party mishap. Yes, I mean an actual sausage party thrown by the king and queen. I liked it, but there it's not a happy story, even though the ending is supposed to make us think there might be a happy ending someday.
The Nest of Nightingales by Theophile Gautier:
Again, very anticlimactic. Two hermit cousins have otherworldly singing abilities, and they teach 3 orphan birds their way of singing after the bird parent dies while trying to compete against the girls in a singing competition. Not my cup of tea and maybe my least favorite story in the book.
The Will-o’-the-Wisps are in Town by Hans Christian Andersen:
A fairy tale about fairy tales, luck, and poetry in bottle. Oh, and a Bog Witch who tells a story within a story. It’s interesting because I can see how he might have made this as a way of describing his writer’s block. The main reason I think this story was better than most is because there’s an actual ending that makes sense, and it’s even kind of funny in a way that’s hard to describe. I hadn’t read this fairy tale by Andersen before, so that alone was exciting. I love his stuff.
Looking-Glass House (Excerpt from Through the Looking-Glass) by Lewis Carroll:
I can’t help but love Lewis Carroll. The Big Book of Classic Fantasy calls his writing style “nonsense literature,” which I love. This story is the first chapter from his second book, and I’m sure you’ll be familiar with it.
The Goophered Grapevine by Charles W. Chestnutt:
I read this story in college actually, and reading it again I see that it holds up. It has a special writing style that includes the use of dialect writing. It’s stories within a story and it involves a plantation and a former slave, a “goophered” (cursed) vineyard, and a conjure woman who practices magic. There’s magic in the tale, but it’s not of the variety I’m used to. This is not a fairy tale, at least not to me, and it’s slower than the others, but it’s wonderfully written.
The Bee-Man of Orn by Frank R. Stockton:
Great little story with a good moral.
The Ensouled Violin by H.P. Blavatsky:
Black magic, sign me up! I really enjoyed this one, as ridiculous as it was. Darker than a lot of the other stories here.
The Fulness of Life by Edith Wharton:
Not for me. I get the sentiment, it’s lovely in its sadness and morals, but things like this usually don’t grab me. Marriage, regrets, blah blah blah.
The Plattner Story by H.G. Wells:
Very descriptive, in Wells fashion, but it’s pushing it to say that this is fantasy. A man is thrown into another dimension and meets aliens. I enjoyed it, but not my favorite.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka:
One of my all time favorites. If you haven’t read this, you are missing out on a this unnerving, dark fantasy story starring a roach person (or is it?). There’s a great hidden meaning here. I’m glad this was included in the collection of stories.
Uncle Monday by Zora Neale Hurston:
This is another story I remember from college. I like Hurston and I did enjoy this story. It’s about a mysterious hoodoo conjurer, singing stones, and magical snakes. It reads like a bogeyman legend to me, and the story itself isn’t in the style I usually like, but Hurston is a great writer.
(more to come)
booksrbrainfood's review
5.0
This is an incredible collection of fantasy works throughout several periods in literature. This is probably the largest file I have ever received from NetGalley, so when the title says "Big Book" you can believe it.
I was impressed with the scientific approach to determining what to include in this collection. The first thing was to define "fey" which the authors were clear about stating that there is a fluidity in the definition over time. What intrigued me the most about their process was the use of what I envisioned as a mathematical chart or graph where they charted what they called "the rate of fey". This describes a work by the degree in which it involves fantasy or a fantastical element. I thought this was a clever and interesting method of looking at this genre and examining which works to include in a collection.
I also enjoyed the varied authors, many were known to me as a modest fantasy reader rather than solo-fantasy reader. What surprised me, and I appreciate that they did purposefully, was to include works that were either lesser known by well-known fantasy writers as well as surprise me with writers that I knew from other genres who had written some fantasy as well.
Most of these works are from the English originally but I appreciated the inclusion of the newly translated works from around the world as well. I love to have the opportunity to read work from a different cultural perspective. Fantasy will often give an interesting insight into these cultures that differs from other works of literature.
Highly recommend.
#BigBookofClassicFantasy #NetGalley.
I was impressed with the scientific approach to determining what to include in this collection. The first thing was to define "fey" which the authors were clear about stating that there is a fluidity in the definition over time. What intrigued me the most about their process was the use of what I envisioned as a mathematical chart or graph where they charted what they called "the rate of fey". This describes a work by the degree in which it involves fantasy or a fantastical element. I thought this was a clever and interesting method of looking at this genre and examining which works to include in a collection.
I also enjoyed the varied authors, many were known to me as a modest fantasy reader rather than solo-fantasy reader. What surprised me, and I appreciate that they did purposefully, was to include works that were either lesser known by well-known fantasy writers as well as surprise me with writers that I knew from other genres who had written some fantasy as well.
Most of these works are from the English originally but I appreciated the inclusion of the newly translated works from around the world as well. I love to have the opportunity to read work from a different cultural perspective. Fantasy will often give an interesting insight into these cultures that differs from other works of literature.
Highly recommend.
#BigBookofClassicFantasy #NetGalley.
pvn's review
4.0
It's tough to go wrong with this collection (even though I don't read a lot of fantasy). The editors are topnotch and thus most of the stories are too. A good mix of classic and little-known stories. Recommended.
I really appreciate the ARC for review!!
I really appreciate the ARC for review!!
paladinjane's review
5.0
Full disclosure: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
The editors define classic fantasy to include stories written between the early 1800s and WWII. They attempt to represent the natural diversity of the genre (which they point out is far more extensive than what most readers might assume, given the conservative biases of many other anthologies), while being mindful of how many of the stories of this era have aged (for example, in regards to racism and sexism). Even where familiar authors appear, the stories the VanderMeers have chosen tend to be more obscure.
The book has a nice introduction discussing different trends and themes in fantasy through the period covered in this anthology, and each author has a short biographical piece which helps the reader understand how their work contributes to the genre. Quite frankly, this would make an excellent textbook for a literature class on classic fantasy. The introduction says that half the stories in this collection are translated works, some of which have never been translated before into English and some of which are new translations. The authors are from a total of 26 countries. While it’s still a Europe-centric collection, this anthology demonstrates impressive diversity in its representation of the genre at that era.
The bad: Some stories have not aged especially well. While the editors did clearly make an effort to select stories with less sexism and racism than the rest of the genre at that time, it’s still there. Your mileage may vary on how much you tolerate when you read, and if your tolerance level is zero, then this may not be the book for you. In one notable example, “The Goophered Grapevine” has the n-word littered throughout it, though I will add that it was written by an African-American author.
In any reprint anthology, I like to know the table of contents so I can decide how much overlap it has with my other collections and whether the unique portions are worth it to me. I’ve listed it below, but I think you’ll find that this is definitely worth buying if you enjoy classic fantasy, due to its enormous size and how many of the works are translated for the first time into English.
Table of contents:
“The Queen’s Son” by Bettina von Armin
“Hans-My-Hedgehog” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
“The Story of the Hard Nut” by E. T. A. Hoffmann
“Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving
“The Luck of the Bean-Rows” by Charles Nodier
“Transformation” by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
“The Nest of Nightingales” by Théophile Gautier
“The Fairytale about a Dead Body, Belonging to No One Knows Whom” by Vladimir Odoevsky
“The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton” by Charles Dickens
“The Nose” by Nikolai Gogol
“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Story of Jeon Unchi” by Anonymous
“Feathertop” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Master Zacharius” by Jules Verne
“The Frost King” by Louisa May Alcott
“The Tartarus of Maids” by Herman Melville
“The Magic Mirror” by George MacDonald
“The Diamond Lens” by Fitz-James O’Brien
“Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti
“The Will-O’-the-Wisps Are in Town” by Hans Christian Andersen
“The Legend of the Pale Maiden” by Aleksis Kivi
“Looking-Glass House” by Lewis Carroll
“Furnica, or the Queen of the Ants” by Carmen Sylva
“The Story of Iván the Fool” by Leo Tolstoy
“The Goophered Grapevine” by Charles W. Chestnutt
“The Bee-Man of Orn” by Frank R. Stockton
“The Remarkable Rocket” by Oscar Wilde
“The Ensouled Violin” by H. P. Blavatsky
“The Death of Odjigh” by Marcel Schwob
“The Terrestrial Fire” by Marcel Schwob
“The Kingdom of Cards” by Rabindranath Tagore
“The Other Side” by Count Eric Stanlislaus Stenbock
“The Fulness of Life” by Edith Wharton
“Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady” by Vernon Lee
“The Little Room” by Madeline Yale Wynne
“The Plattner Story” by H. G. Wells
“The Princess Baladina–Her Adventure” by Willa Cather
“The Reluctant Dragon” by Kenneth Grahame
“Iktomi Stories” by Zitkala-Ša
“Marionettes” by Louis Fréchette
“Dance of the Comets” by Paul Scheerbart
“The White People” by Arthur Machen
“Blamol” by Gustav Meyrink
“Goblins” by Louis Fréchette
“Sowbread” by Grazia Deledda
“The Angry Street: A Bad Dream” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Aunt and Amabel” by E. Nesbit
“Sacrifice” by Aleksey Remizov
“The Princess Steel” by W. E. B. Du Bois
“The Hump” by Fernán Caballero
“The Celestial Omnibus” by E. M. Forster
“The Legend of the Ice Babies” by E. Pauline Johnson
“The Last Redoubt” by William Hope Hodgson
“Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse” by L. Frank Baum
“The Plant Men” by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“Strange News from Another Star” by Hermann Hesse
“The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka
“The Hoard of the Gibbelins” by Lord Dunsany
“Through the Dragon Glass” by A. Merritt
“David Blaize and the Blue Door” by E. F. Benson
“The Big Bestiary of Modern Literature” by Franz Blei
“The Alligator War” by Horatio Quiroga
“Friend Island” by Francis Stevens
“Magic Comes to a Committee” by Stella Benson
“Gramophone of the Ages” by Yefim Zozulya
“Joiwind” by David Lindsay
“Sound in the Mountain” by Maurice Renard
“Sennin” by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
“The Worm Ouroboros” by E. R. Eddison
“At the Border” by Der Nister
“The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan” by William B. Laughead
“Talkative Domovoi” by Aleksandr Grin
“The Ratcatcher” by Aleksandr Grin
“The Shadow Kingdom” by Robert E. Howard
“The Man Traveling with the Brocade Portrait” by Edogawa Ranpo
“A Visit to the Museum” by Vladimir Nabokov
“The Water Sprite’s Tale” by Karel Čapek
“The Capital of Cat Country” by Lao She
“Coyote Stories” by Mourning Dove
“Uncle Monday” by Zora Neale Hurston
“Rose-Cold, Moon Skater” by María Teresa León
“A Night of the High Season” by Bruno Schulz
“The Influence of the Sun” by Fernand Dumont
“The Town of Cats” by Hagiwara Sakutarō
“The Debutante” by Leonora Carrington
“The Jewels in the Forest” by Fritz Leiber
“Evening Primrose” by John Collier
“The Coming of the White Worm” by Clark Ashton Smith
“The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls” by Marcel Aymé
“Leaf by Niggle” by J. R. R. Tolkien
The editors define classic fantasy to include stories written between the early 1800s and WWII. They attempt to represent the natural diversity of the genre (which they point out is far more extensive than what most readers might assume, given the conservative biases of many other anthologies), while being mindful of how many of the stories of this era have aged (for example, in regards to racism and sexism). Even where familiar authors appear, the stories the VanderMeers have chosen tend to be more obscure.
The book has a nice introduction discussing different trends and themes in fantasy through the period covered in this anthology, and each author has a short biographical piece which helps the reader understand how their work contributes to the genre. Quite frankly, this would make an excellent textbook for a literature class on classic fantasy. The introduction says that half the stories in this collection are translated works, some of which have never been translated before into English and some of which are new translations. The authors are from a total of 26 countries. While it’s still a Europe-centric collection, this anthology demonstrates impressive diversity in its representation of the genre at that era.
The bad: Some stories have not aged especially well. While the editors did clearly make an effort to select stories with less sexism and racism than the rest of the genre at that time, it’s still there. Your mileage may vary on how much you tolerate when you read, and if your tolerance level is zero, then this may not be the book for you. In one notable example, “The Goophered Grapevine” has the n-word littered throughout it, though I will add that it was written by an African-American author.
In any reprint anthology, I like to know the table of contents so I can decide how much overlap it has with my other collections and whether the unique portions are worth it to me. I’ve listed it below, but I think you’ll find that this is definitely worth buying if you enjoy classic fantasy, due to its enormous size and how many of the works are translated for the first time into English.
Table of contents:
“The Queen’s Son” by Bettina von Armin
“Hans-My-Hedgehog” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
“The Story of the Hard Nut” by E. T. A. Hoffmann
“Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving
“The Luck of the Bean-Rows” by Charles Nodier
“Transformation” by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
“The Nest of Nightingales” by Théophile Gautier
“The Fairytale about a Dead Body, Belonging to No One Knows Whom” by Vladimir Odoevsky
“The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton” by Charles Dickens
“The Nose” by Nikolai Gogol
“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Story of Jeon Unchi” by Anonymous
“Feathertop” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Master Zacharius” by Jules Verne
“The Frost King” by Louisa May Alcott
“The Tartarus of Maids” by Herman Melville
“The Magic Mirror” by George MacDonald
“The Diamond Lens” by Fitz-James O’Brien
“Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti
“The Will-O’-the-Wisps Are in Town” by Hans Christian Andersen
“The Legend of the Pale Maiden” by Aleksis Kivi
“Looking-Glass House” by Lewis Carroll
“Furnica, or the Queen of the Ants” by Carmen Sylva
“The Story of Iván the Fool” by Leo Tolstoy
“The Goophered Grapevine” by Charles W. Chestnutt
“The Bee-Man of Orn” by Frank R. Stockton
“The Remarkable Rocket” by Oscar Wilde
“The Ensouled Violin” by H. P. Blavatsky
“The Death of Odjigh” by Marcel Schwob
“The Terrestrial Fire” by Marcel Schwob
“The Kingdom of Cards” by Rabindranath Tagore
“The Other Side” by Count Eric Stanlislaus Stenbock
“The Fulness of Life” by Edith Wharton
“Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady” by Vernon Lee
“The Little Room” by Madeline Yale Wynne
“The Plattner Story” by H. G. Wells
“The Princess Baladina–Her Adventure” by Willa Cather
“The Reluctant Dragon” by Kenneth Grahame
“Iktomi Stories” by Zitkala-Ša
“Marionettes” by Louis Fréchette
“Dance of the Comets” by Paul Scheerbart
“The White People” by Arthur Machen
“Blamol” by Gustav Meyrink
“Goblins” by Louis Fréchette
“Sowbread” by Grazia Deledda
“The Angry Street: A Bad Dream” by G. K. Chesterton
“The Aunt and Amabel” by E. Nesbit
“Sacrifice” by Aleksey Remizov
“The Princess Steel” by W. E. B. Du Bois
“The Hump” by Fernán Caballero
“The Celestial Omnibus” by E. M. Forster
“The Legend of the Ice Babies” by E. Pauline Johnson
“The Last Redoubt” by William Hope Hodgson
“Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse” by L. Frank Baum
“The Plant Men” by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“Strange News from Another Star” by Hermann Hesse
“The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka
“The Hoard of the Gibbelins” by Lord Dunsany
“Through the Dragon Glass” by A. Merritt
“David Blaize and the Blue Door” by E. F. Benson
“The Big Bestiary of Modern Literature” by Franz Blei
“The Alligator War” by Horatio Quiroga
“Friend Island” by Francis Stevens
“Magic Comes to a Committee” by Stella Benson
“Gramophone of the Ages” by Yefim Zozulya
“Joiwind” by David Lindsay
“Sound in the Mountain” by Maurice Renard
“Sennin” by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
“The Worm Ouroboros” by E. R. Eddison
“At the Border” by Der Nister
“The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan” by William B. Laughead
“Talkative Domovoi” by Aleksandr Grin
“The Ratcatcher” by Aleksandr Grin
“The Shadow Kingdom” by Robert E. Howard
“The Man Traveling with the Brocade Portrait” by Edogawa Ranpo
“A Visit to the Museum” by Vladimir Nabokov
“The Water Sprite’s Tale” by Karel Čapek
“The Capital of Cat Country” by Lao She
“Coyote Stories” by Mourning Dove
“Uncle Monday” by Zora Neale Hurston
“Rose-Cold, Moon Skater” by María Teresa León
“A Night of the High Season” by Bruno Schulz
“The Influence of the Sun” by Fernand Dumont
“The Town of Cats” by Hagiwara Sakutarō
“The Debutante” by Leonora Carrington
“The Jewels in the Forest” by Fritz Leiber
“Evening Primrose” by John Collier
“The Coming of the White Worm” by Clark Ashton Smith
“The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls” by Marcel Aymé
“Leaf by Niggle” by J. R. R. Tolkien