Fancies and Goodnights (Hardcover)

"Franklin Fletcher dreamed of luxury in the form of tiger-skins and beautiful women. He was prepared, at a pinch, to forego the tiger-skins."

It's a representative beginning. A typical Collier hero is a young man with big dreams, beaten down by poverty and respectability. He longs for seashores and good champagne, but one wonders whether he ever actually has a date (perhaps he wonders himself). His powers are the powers of the weak: sneakiness, sometimes with the aid of the supernatural. The supernatural, as any reader knows, is not always reliable: Franklin Fletcher's tale ends on a note of grisly comedy. The best comparison I can think of is Saki, laced by Gissing and with just a dash of Poe.

These Collier stories were hugely popular among people whom I held in high regard back when I was in college in the 50s. I can't say I entirely liked them - the stories. The snarkiness was entertaining, but unsettling: probably it hit too close to home. Rereading them after nearly half a century, it's easy to see why one would want to put them back in print. They have plenty of intrinsic merit. But I think they have a side-benefit, perhaps unintended: I think they are a bracing reminder of the 50s and what one (read: I) might have hated about them. Try this:

"In Hell, as in other places we know of, conditions are damnably disagreeable. Well-adjusted, energetic, and ambitious devils take this very much in their stride. They expect to improve their lot and ultimately to become fiends of distinction."

That was fine if your deviltry was "well-adjusted, energetic and ambitious." Otherwise you had to settle for smaller consolations, one of which, surely, would have been the stories of John Collier. Reading these stories, then, may be a kind of nostalgia trip. It may not always seem like a nostalgia trip one wants to take, but as Jane Austen says, one may love a place even if one has suffered there. And in any event, Collier is surely good company along the way.