Tallest Stories

Welcome to The Tallest Story, the second most grandiose pub in the world – always at least one narrow alley and three imaginary corners away from the Cardiff waterfront – a pub that lies in another dimension, somewhere between dawn and sunrise and adjacent to both infinity and eternity – where the floor is not made out of toenails, but out of all the words that are spoken for no good reason. A place where the only currency that matters is stories...

If every tale told in a tavern is a tall story, then what happens when the entire universe becomes a tavern? It means that every story ever told is tall and therefore untrue, and this includes the true tales. They are all lies. But a lie is a concept only possible because it can be contrasted with truth: without its opposite concept it makes no sense at all. This implies one of two unlikely things, (a) the universe is not really a tavern, (b) there are other universes beyond this one where true stories exist. If you ever learn which is the correct answer to this riddle please let me know.

60 linked stories, 60 illustrations, 18 years in the making - this is probably Rhys Hughes' most important book to date.

Contents:

• Taller Stories
  • Prologue
  • Rainbow's End
  • Ghost Holiday
  • The Wonderful Words
  • Learning to Fly
  • Learning to Fall
  • The Banshee
  • The Queen of Jazz
  • Anna and the Dragon
  • Three Friends
  • The Rake and the Fool
  • Goblin Sunrise
  • The Juggler
  • The Peat Fire
  • Knight on a Bear Mountain
  • Something About a Demon
  • The Furious Walnuts
  • The Illustrated Student
  • The Story with a Clever Title
  • The Silver Necks
  • Never Hug an Aadvark
  • Epilogue
• More Taller Stories
  • In the Margins
  • The Wooden Salesman
  • Two Fat Men in a Very Thin Country
  • The Man Who Threw His Voice
  • The Sealed Room
  • The Masterpiece
  • The Hole Truth: A Lie
  • Entropy
  • The Time Tunnel Orchid
  • The Golden Fleas
  • The West Pole
  • Islands in the Bathtub
  • Billion World Boat
  • The Smutty Tamarinds
  • A Curry in Camelot
  • Encore
• Last Taller Stories
  • The Surface Area of a Ghost's Wanderings
  • Degrees of Separation
  • The Folded Page
  • Milk and Ladders
  • Niddala
  • The Juice of Days
  • The Kissable Climes
  • But It Pours
  • The Tallest Midget
  • The Man Who Gargled with Gargoyle Juice
  • The Minotaur in Pamplona
  • Wood for the Trees
  • The Violation
  • Oaths
  • Chianti's Inferno
  • Gaspar Jangle's Séance
  • The Urban Freckle
  • Corneropolis
  • The Six Sentinels
  • The Mirror in the Looking Glass
  • Trombonhomie
  • Climbing the Tallest Tree in the World
  • Anton Arctic and the Conquest of the Scottish Pole
  • The Most Boring Story
• Afterword