The Weird

The Weird: A Compendium of Dark & Strange Stories.

Edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer.

World Fantasy Award 2012, British Fantasy Award 2012.

From Lovecraft to Borges to Gaiman, a century of intrepid literary experimentation has created a corpus of dark and strange stories that transcend all known genre boundaries. Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.

Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won’t find any elves or wizards here... but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled. The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon.

Contents:

• Alfred Kubin, “The Other Side” (excerpt), 1908 (translation, Austria)
• F. Marion Crawford, “The Screaming Skull,” 1908
• Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows,” 1907
• Saki, “Sredni Vashtar,” 1910
• M. R. James, “Casting the Runes,” 1911
• Lord Dunsany, “How Nuth Would Have Practiced his Art,” 1912
• Gustav Meyrink, “The Man in the Bottle,” 1912 (translation, Austria)
• Georg Heym, “The Dissection,” 1913 (new translation by Gio Clairval, Germany)
• Hanns Heinz Ewers, “The Spider,” 1915 (translation, Germany)
• Rabindranath Tagore, “The Hungry Stones,” 1916 (India)
• Luigi Ugolini, “The Vegetable Man,” 1917 (new translation by Anna and Brendan Connell, Italy; first-ever translation into English)
• A. Merritt, “The People of the Pit,” 1918
• Ryunosuke Akutagawa, “The Hell Screen,” 1918 (new translation, Japan)
• Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett), “Unseen—Unfeared,” 1919
• Franz Kafka, “In the Penal Colony,” 1919 (translation, German/Czech)
• Stefan Grabinski, “The White Weyrak,” 1921 (translation, Poland)
• H. F. Arnold, “The Night Wire,” 1926
• H. P. Lovecraft, “The Dunwich Horror,” 1929
• Margaret Irwin, “The Book,” 1930
• Jean Ray, “The Mainz Psalter,” 1930 (translation, Belgium)
• Jean Ray, “The Shadowy Street,” 1931 (translation, Belgium)
• Clark Ashton Smith, “Genius Loci,” 1933
• Hagiwara Sakutoro, “The Town of Cats,” 1935 (translation, Japan)
• Hugh Walpole, “The Tarn,” 1936
• Bruno Schulz, “Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass,” 1937 (translation, Poland)
• Robert Barbour Johnson, “Far Below,” 1939
• Fritz Leiber, “Smoke Ghost,” 1941
• Leonora Carrington, “White Rabbits,” 1941
• Donald Wollheim, “Mimic,” 1942
• Ray Bradbury, “The Crowd,” 1943
• William Sansom, “The Long Sheet,” 1944
• Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph,” 1945 (translation, Argentina)
• Olympe Bhely-Quenum, “A Child in the Bush of Ghosts,” 1949 (Benin)
• Shirley Jackson, “The Summer People,” 1950
• Margaret St. Clair, “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles,” 1951
• Robert Bloch, “The Hungry House,” 1951
• Augusto Monterroso, “Mister Taylor,” 1952 (new translation by Larry Nolen, Guatemala)
• Amos Tutuola, “The Complete Gentleman,” 1952 (Nigeria)
• Jerome Bixby, “It’s a Good Life,” 1953
• Julio Cortazar, “Axolotl,” 1956 (new translation by Gio Clairval, Argentina)
• William Sansom, “A Woman Seldom Found,” 1956
• Charles Beaumont, “The Howling Man,” 1959
• Mervyn Peake, “Same Time, Same Place,” 1963
• Dino Buzzati, “The Colomber,” 1966 (new translation by Gio Clairval, Italy)
• Michel Bernanos, “The Other Side of the Mountain,” 1967 (new translation by Gio Clairval, France)
• Merce Rodoreda, “The Salamander,” 1967 (translation, Catalan)
• Claude Seignolle, “The Ghoulbird,” 1967 (new translation by Gio Clairval, France)
• Gahan Wilson, “The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be,” 1967
• Daphne Du Maurier, “Don’t Look Now,” 1971
• Robert Aickman, “The Hospice,” 1975
• Dennis Etchison, “It Only Comes Out at Night,” 1976
• James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon), “The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Terrible Things to Rats,” 1976
• Eric Basso, “The Beak Doctor,” 1977
• Jamaica Kincaid, “Mother,” 1978 (Antigua and Barbuda/US)
• George R.R. Martin, “Sandkings,” 1979
• Bob Leman, “Window,” 1980
• Ramsey Campbell, “The Brood,” 1980
• Michael Shea, “The Autopsy,” 1980
• William Gibson/John Shirley, “The Belonging Kind,” 1981
• M. John Harrison, “Egnaro,” 1981
• Joanna Russ, “The Little Dirty Girl,” 1982
• M. John Harrison, “The New Rays,” 1982
• Premendra Mitra, “The Discovery of Telenapota,” 1984 (translation, India)
• F. Paul Wilson, “Soft,” 1984
• Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild,” 1984
• Clive Barker, “In the Hills, the Cities,” 1984
• Leena Krohn, “Tainaron,” 1985 (translation, Finland)
• Garry Kilworth, “Hogfoot Right and Bird-hands,” 1987
• Lucius Shepard, “Shades,” 1987
• Harlan Ellison, “The Function of Dream Sleep,” 1988
• Ben Okri, “Worlds That Flourish,” 1988 (Nigeria)
• Elizabeth Hand, “The Boy in the Tree,” 1989
• Joyce Carol Oates, “Family,” 1989
• Poppy Z Brite, “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood,” 1990
• Michal Ajvaz, “The End of the Garden,” 1991 (translation, Czech)
• Karen Joy Fowler, “The Dark,” 1991
• Kathe Koja, “Angels in Love,” 1991
• Haruki Murakami, “The Ice Man,” 1991 (translation, Japan)
• Lisa Tuttle, “Replacements,” 1992
• Marc Laidlaw, “The Diane Arbus Suicide Portfolio,” 1993
• Steven Utley, “The Country Doctor,” 1993
• William Browning Spenser, “The Ocean and All Its Devices,” 1994
• Jeffrey Ford, “The Delicate,” 1994
• Martin Simpson, “Last Rites and Resurrections,” 1994
• Stephen King, “The Man in the Black Suit,” 1994
• Angela Carter, “The Snow Pavilion,” 1995
• Craig Padawer, “The Meat Garden,” 1996
• Stepan Chapman, “The Stiff and the Stile,” 1997
• Tanith Lee, “Yellow and Red,” 1998
• Kelly Link, “The Specialist’s Hat,” 1998
• Caitlin R. Kiernan, “A Redress for Andromeda,” 2000
• Michael Chabon, “The God of Dark Laughter,” 2001
• China Mieville, “Details,” 2002
• Michael Cisco, “The Genius of Assassins,” 2002
• Neil Gaiman, “Feeders and Eaters,” 2002
• Jeff VanderMeer, “The Cage,” 2002
• Jeffrey Ford, “The Beautiful Gelreesh,” 2003
• Thomas Ligotti, “The Town Manager,” 2003
• Brian Evenson, “The Brotherhood of Mutilation,” 2003
• Mark Samuels, “The White Hands,” 2003
• Daniel Abraham, “Flat Diana,” 2004
• Margo Lanagan, “Singing My Sister Down,” 2005 (Australia)
• T. M. Wright, “The People on the Island,” 2005
• Laird Barron, “The Forest,” 2007
• Liz Williams, “The Hide,” 2007
• Reza Negarestani, “The Dust Enforcer,” 2008 (Iran)
• Micaela Morrissette, “The Familiars,” 2009
• Steve Duffy, “In the Lion’s Den,” 2009
• Stephen Graham Jones, “Little Lambs,” 2009
• K. J. Bishop, “Saving the Gleeful Horse,” 2010 (Australia)