American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to Now (boxed set)

Edited by Peter Straub

2 books • 86 classic stories of fantasy, horror, and the supernatural • 1,400 pages

From its beginning, American literature teems with tales of horror, hauntings, terrifying obsessions and gruesome incursions, of the uncanny ways in which ordinary reality can be breached and subverted by the unknown and the irrational. In the tales of Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne, and their literary successors, the bright prospects of the New World face an uneasy reckoning with the forces of darkness. As this pathbreaking two-volume anthology demonstrates, it is a tradition with many unexpected detours and hidden chambers, and one that continues to evolve, finding new forms and new themes.

Peter Straub, a contemporary master of literary horror and fantasy, offers an authoritative and diverse gathering of stories calculated to unsettle and delight, in styles ranging from the exquisitely insinuating speculations of Henry James’s “The Jolly Corner” to the nightmarish post-apocalyptic savagery of Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.” Ghostly narratives of the Edwardian era, lurid classics from the pulp heyday of Weird Tales, latter-day masterpieces by Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, and Steven Millhauser: over 80 stories in all, with a generous selection of contemporary authors who continue to push the genre in new and startling directions.

See the complete table of contents for volume 1 (Poe to the Pulps).
See the complete table of contents for volume 2 (The 1940s to Now).

Peter Straub, editor, is the author of 18 novels, which have been translated into more than 20 languages. He has won the British Fantasy Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, and two World Fantasy Awards. He edited H. P. Lovecraft: Tales, volume #155 of The Library of America series.

Note: These Library of America volumes feature the standard series specifications (trim size, paper, cloth, Smyth-sewn binding, ribbon), with special jackets and sturdy box designed by graphic designer Chip Kidd.

Also of interest:
The Philip K. Dick Collection (3-book boxed set)

Other multi-volume sets:
Washington Irving : Fiction, Travels, and Historical Works (3 volumes)
Henry James: Complete Stories (5 volumes)
Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (2 volumes)
Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories (3 volumes)

Please direct all media inquiries, including review copy requests, to:
Camille McDuffie
Publicist
Goldberg McDuffie Communications, Inc.
cmcduffie@goldbergmcduffie.com

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