Terror And The Uncanny From Poe To The Pulps [Hardcover]

These volumes offer an immense amount of excellent material in an attractive and durable format and most horror / supernatural fans will have no doubts about snapping these up. There are a few caveats, some typical of Library of America volumes, and several specifically related to Straub's editorial choices but as long as you don't object too strenuously to these small issues, there is no serious impairment to purchase.

First, LoA never allocates enough space for editors. Straub has a wee tiny 3 page intro and a few biographical notes on the authors at the end of each volume, and there is no preface to each story or end notes on thematic topics. This means you the reader have no idea as to why this author or that specific story is included in the volume. Compared to say "The Dark Descent"'s approach, this parsimony is unfortunate and occasionally frustrating. Why for instance is the peculiar and cloying "Golden Baby" in here? How and why is Melville's "The Tartarus of Maids" a "fantastic tale"? Why select the given Lovecraft story over all others in his repertoire? The absence of thematic notes is a bit more annoying here than in a single author collection as the wide-ranging assortment of tales grouped together without explanation or context can seem especially puzzling due to the wide range of moods and styles found here. Anyway, these are minor issues - the appeal of most stories herein is straightforward, and the reader can always do some follow-up research to assess the reputation and impact of a given writer on the horror field..

Second LoA issue - the limited scope and convenience of textual notes. The LoA series never uses actual numbering of notes in text, so the reader has to flip ahead to the endnotes at the rear of the volume whenever he is confronted with a puzzling line of text. The end notes are pretty sparse and limited, so often one will flip to the end and find nothing. The reader soon tires of flipping back and forth, meaning most of the limited number of end notes are never read by the reader. You can look at the endnotes section after reading each story, but at that point getting info on allusions and references made is rather pointless. As suggested, there could probably be some more endnotes here, and those that are here should be properly numbered within the text - the S.T. Joshi approach found in his annotated Lovecraft for Penguin is still the gold standard.

First Straub issue - the usual "colonial cringe" phenomenon found in broadly scoped genre anthologies, where a mediocre piece by a "big name" gets chucked in to the mix to try to elevate the tone of the collection - "oh, look, John Steinbeck wrote a vampire story, let's include it to show that horror isn't the ghetto that the literati say that it is...". From the genre reader's perspective, if Mr. Steinbeck's hypothetical vampire tale is not a particularly good one, its inclusion is not at all worthwhile, and snooty intellectuals are unlikely to rethink their dearly held prejudices about genre work because a big name tried to pay the bills once by writing something supernatural. In the current volume, the works by Melville, Fitzgerald, and Dawson stand out as being both mediocre tales and also square pegs wedged into roundish holes.

Second Straub issue - as with other Straub anthologies ("Poe's Children"), his editorial tastes run to the more erudite and intellectual, so if your tastes run in a more pulpy direction, you may be saddened to see some works excluded and others included. Of the tales included, the pieces by Crane and Bangs are attempts at high-brow cleverness that fall flat, and the Julian Hawthorne piece is surely the most intellectual and arid approach to that old saw, the werewolf story, that could be imagined.

This content complaint would happen with virtually any anthology though, so this is hardly a significant issue. Finally though, bear in mind these tales are probably 90% what might be called "horror" so if you are hoping for jumping frogs or Rip Van Winkle, you are probably going to be disappointed. Calling this "American Horror Stories" or "American Supernatural Tales" would probably have been more honest, but I suppose "Fantastic Tales" is more upscale.

As with all LoA volumes, the binding, print and paper quality are impeccable and these books are heirloom class items that can readily be passed down to one's descendants. Volume I is highly worthwhile and although it could use more editorial material and more detailed notes better integrated into the text, this collection will provide many hours of good reading and even veteran horror buffs (oops, excuse me, fantastic tale connoisseurs) will find more than a few new delights herein.

I love almost all of the stories in this first volume of American Fantastic Tales edited by Peter Straub. (But, Peter darling, I have to agree with S. T. concerning ye Seabury Quinn tale -- phooey!) I was especially happy to see so many women writers in this first edition, including Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, and some with whom I am completely unfamiliar. To be introduced to authors that I have not read is one of the aspects that makes such a book a real treasure. Too, there are stories of which I have read but have not been able to locate. One such tale is Conrad Aiken's "Mr. Arcularis," and it is sublime. I was very happy to see a tale by August Derleth. Whatever may be said of some of his squamous Cthulhu Mythos stories (which he wrote when very young and with no serious intent), Derleth could write a fine weird tale, and "The Panelled Room" publish'd in this anthology is superb. Some have accus'd Derleth's tale of being a rip-off of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall Paper," -- which is also included in this volume, & thus a comparison may be made.

There have been some quibbles about choice of tales. S. T. Joshi has ungenerously condemn'd ye choice of what he considers one of H. P. Lovecraft's lousy stories, "The Thing on the Doorstep." Great Yuggoth! The story is FASCINATING! It contains one of Lovecraft's most perverse ideas, the soul of a father ravaging, so to speak, the soul of his daughter; the exchange of a male personality with a female personality; the marriage of a man to a woman who houses within her the soul of another man! From a psychological point of view, the idea of the character of Asenath Waite representing a (perhaps subconscious) portrayal of Lovecraft's Mother and of his wife is intriguing. As a horror story, this eerie nasty yarn is extremely effective. It is uniquely Lovecraftian and its appearance in this anthology is right-on!

I would have chosen a different Bloch story, preferring his fine "The Shadow from the Steeple" or "Return to the Sabbath" or the very odd "Enoch" to the amusing but not substantial "The Cloak." But that's just me. I love this first volume, and it is a book to which I will return time and again.

Now -- if only Mr. Straub cou'd convince The Library of America to publish a second H. P. Lovecraft volume!!!

First, I am not a devotee of the sort of "fantastic" tales that this volume presents, so I can't presume to offer the detailed commentary of the other reviewers who can argue whether all of the proper authors, or their best works, were included. This comment is directed more towards the general reader looking for an introduction to "fantastic" tales from the 19th and earlier part of the 20th century, or who just enjoys the LoA series. First, these are not primarily "horror" stories; all have some element of the supernatural or deal with an exaggerated or extreme psychology or state of mind. If you are looking for a selection of stories that will scare your socks off, I'm afraid you will be disappointed. Second, the LoA editors had a number of difficult decisions to make about what authors and stories to include. LoA has done a great job in reissuing American classics, primarily devoting each volume to a single author. This presents an obvious problem when an author might have produced one or two terrific works, but not a body of writing that justifies an entire volume. LoA has dealt with this problem (and admirably so) by issuing a number of compilations based on subject or genre. For example, they did a great job with the two crime fiction volumes issued a few years back, and they have done the same with the volumes on American Poetry, American Sermons, Slave Narratives, war reporting, etc. Confronting the issue here, it appears the decision was made to offer as broad a spectrum by as many authors as possible. In fact, this volume presents 44 stories by 44 different authors--no more than one story per author. Obviously, this approach has both advantages and drawbacks. For example, it is curious to consider a volume of "fantastic" American tales with only one story by Poe (and I am not certain that "Berenice" would have been my choice). It is also curious that the volume includes Henry James's "The Jolly Corner" (though it is a fine story) but not "The Turn of the Screw." That being said, however, given the apparent goal of the anthology to offer as many different authors as possible and, perhaps, the less frequently anthologized stories of even famous writers (and no doubt to offer stories of a workable length--"The Turn of the Screw" is fully three times as long as any story offered here)--the selection process does make sense and pays off by offering a wealth of stories by writers either unknown or little known outside of devotees of the genre. As a matter of fact, in perusing the table of contents, I was embarrassed to realize that I was entirely unfamiliar with about half the authors represented.

As to the selections themselves, I was, especially at first, a bit disappointed. Obviously, LoA wanted to include famous or notable American writers and to cover as much of the time frame as possible, but at least a couple of works by these notables were disappointing. For example, I wasn't especially absorbed by the stories by Charles Brockton Brown or Washington Irving, but the worst and seemingly most out of place was Melville's "A Tartarus of Maids," which didn't seem to me especially "fantastic" in quality or subject matter. And yes, as you progress, there were some other clunkers: "The Black Dog," "The Striding Place," "An Itinerant House," and "The Jelly-Fish" come immediately to mind.

But, as with all anthologies, not every reader will love every author or story and, on the whole, the stories hold up quite well. (I really enjoyed most of the offering, especially the Edith Wharton story "Afterwards," but also the Eudora Welty, Robert Chambers "The Repairer of Reputations," Fitzgerald's "Benjamin Button," and many others.) Because there are so many authors represented, the volume has the great advantage of introducing many readers to unknown or obscure writers whom thay might follow up at their leisure. The inclusion of many women writers also is notable, for those who pay attention to such things.

All in all, this is a very nicely done volume and makes great bedtime reading. It also helps save from obscurity a number of writers who are rarely read or anthologized.

One final note, LoA's policy has always seemed to be to give the reader a "clean" edition unencumbered by a lot of critical commentary. The emphasis always has been on the writings themselves and not on some particular interpretation that might unfairly color the reader's own judgment and perceptions. Generally, this is a pretty sound policy. In this case, the volume does offer short, helpful biographies of the authors, most limited to a paragraph. (This is in keeping with the biographical chronologies offered in the volumes dedicated to individual writers.) Here, however, some greater editorial commentary or insight might have been useful, especially explaing why an author or a particular work was selected. Instead, we get only a few pages from editor Peter Straub that really didn't satisfy my curiousity. All told, this is probably a minor complaint, and the volume is certainly in keeping with the publishing "philosophy" of LoA. Still, a little more insight would have been nice.

I am looking forward to reading the second volume in the series.

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