Doug Anderson writes: Today is the official publication day for my new anthology, TALES BEFORE TOLKIEN: THE ROOTS OF MODERN FANTASY. It is being published by Ballantine Books simultaneously in hardcover and trade paperback. The idea of the anthology was to collect a number of rare fantasy stories that directly influenced Tolkien, along with other stories to show what the genre was like before THE HOBBIT was published in 1937.
Here’s the listing of the full contents:
- Introduction
- “The Elves” by Ludwig Tieck
- “The Golden Key” by George Macdonald
- “Puss-Cat Mew” by E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen
- “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” by Frank R. Stockton
- “The Demon Pope” by Richard Garnett
- “The Story of Sigurd” by Andrew Lang
- “The Folk of the Mountain Door” by William Morris
- “Black Heart and White Heart” by H. Rider Haggard
- “The Dragon Tamers” by E. Nesbit
- “The Far Islands” by John Buchan
- “The Drawn Arrow” by Clemence Housman
- “The Enchanted Buffalo” by L. Frank Baum
- “Chu-bu and Sheemish” by Lord Dunsany
- “The Baumoff Explosive” by William Hope Hodgson
- “The Regent of the North” by Kenneth Morris
- “The Coming of the Terror” by Arthur Machen
- “The Elf Trap” by Francis Stevens
- “The Thin Queen of Elfhame” by James Branch Cabell
- “The Woman of the Wood” by A. Merritt
- “Golithos the Ogre” by E. A. Wyke-Smith [an extract from THE MARVELLOUS LAND OF SNERGS]
- “The Story of Alwina” by Austin Tappan Wright
- “A Christmas Play” by David Lindsay
- Author Notes and Recommended Reading [ten pages!]
[Order TALES BEFORE TOLKIEN: THE ROOTS OF MODERN FANTASY today!]
