Other Place & Other Stories of the Same Sort

"These stories say something meaningful, as well as relate an anecdote. They are not only examples of narrative skill, but exhibitions of social truth." - Saturday Review

"Priestley is one of the finest and most popular storytellers of the last hundred years. We are now aware many of his stories have a prophetic quality." - Dame Margaret Drabble

"[H]ighly readable and provocative." - Sunday Herald (Sydney)

J. B. Priestley (1894-1984) was a versatile and prolific novelist and playwright, but in The Other Place (1953), he shows an unexpected talent, proving himself a master of the weird tale. In "The Grey Ones," Mr. Patson visits a psychiatrist after he becomes convinced that a race of demons masquerading as men are plotting the overthrow of the human race . . . but what if he's not insane? In "Guest of Honour," a banquet speech becomes a horrifying affair when the keynote speaker realizes his audience is made up of monstrous and menacing creatures. "The Leadington Incident" recounts the disturbing experience of a Cabinet minister who suddenly perceives that though the people around him move and talk as though alive, they are all actually just animated corpses or sleepwalking zombies. The nine tales in this collection are strange, fantastic, and often unsettling, and they represent Priestley at his best.

This 60th anniversary edition, the first reprinting of The Other Place in more than forty years, includes a new introduction by Priestley scholar John Baxendale. Priestley's classic novel of psychological terror, Benighted (1927), is also available from Valancourt Books.