JOHN COLLIER

Fancies and Goodnights

Introduction by FRED HOYLE

Time-Life Books (1980)

CONDITION:  VERY GOOD trade paperback book, with minor shelfwear.

John Collier's edgy, sardonic tales are works of rare wit, curious insight, and scary implication. They stand out as one of the pinnacles in the critically neglected but perennially popular tradition of weird writing that includes E.T.A. Hoffmann and Charles Dickens as well as more recent masters like Jorge Luis Borges and Roald Dahl. With a cast of characters that ranges from man-eating flora to disgruntled devils and suburban salarymen (not that it's always easy to tell one from another), Collier's dazzling stories explore the implacable logic of lunacy, revealing a surreal landscape whose unstable surface is depth-charged with surprise.

Commentaries on line:

Collier's 30 fanciful "fables" make Aesop's seem like

Disney creations. Discomforting, disturbing, his

looney tunes encompassing murder, love, death,

delusion and gender-bending can leave you feeling

like you just banged your head -- badly -- and you

aren't sure of anything. To quote Collier (1901-1980): "How

interesting life is when things get like that!”

What a solid collection of short stories! Some of these stories went on to be adapted by The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Fancies and Goodnights also garnished Collier the International Fantasy Award and an Edgar Award in 1952.

If you are looking for a short story collection that contain tales that are bizarre and weird then this book is for you. Several about devils, at least two about genies, a number about murders or soon-to-be committed murders. Some of it dark material but I knew it was so weird, often fantastical, it did not trouble my soul to read the stories.

This man is a genius. He can write a story about a man falling in love with a department store mannequin and make it more touching than any romance novel. He's clever to the point of hilarity. His wit makes it feel like he's winking at you between the pages.

… marvelous examples of a sort of short story that hardly exists anymore: sharp, satirical, and mordant flights of fantasy where every O. Henry twist is a twist of the knife.

Imaginative short story collection. Shop that sells women in bottles, a flea that aims to become a movie star, thwarted and successfully accomplished murders, stories of greed, of passion and of man-devouring flowers or of man-killing birds. 

This book had something of everything, and I will say that this author writes in one of those ways that made me enjoy almost every single story – even the ones that should be boring.

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