From Methuen: The Drowners by Garry Kilworth (a YA ghost story set in nineteenth-century Hampshire by one of England’s finest writers).
Black Maria by Diana Wynne Jones (YA fantasy about a witch in an English seaside town, by another of England’s finest).
From Morrow: Chase the Morning by Michael Scott Rohan (an intriguing fantasy novel set in a quayside bar).
Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones (first American edition of this sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle).
King of the Dead by R. A. MacAvoy (the second book in her Lens of the World trilogy—read it for the prose. Highly recommended).
From Orbit: Flying Dutch by Tom Holt (literary fantasy, highly recommended).
From Penguin: Grimus by Salman Rushdie (a reprint of this literary fantasy novel by the author of The Satanic Verses).
From Pocket: Witch Hunt by Devin O’Branagan (an interesting generational saga following a family of witches through three centuries).
From Random House: Peter Doyle by John Vernon (a literary alternate history novel about the [nonexistant] relationship between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, and the search for Napolean’s penis . . . highly recommended!)
The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll (a revised edition, including The Wasp in the Wig,” which was cut from the original publication).
From Roc: Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle (first American edition of this splendid dark fantasy).
From Scholastic: The Promise by Robert Westall (first American edition ot this YA ghost story).
From Simon and Schuster: The Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko (a modern Southwestern saga incorporating Native American myths, highly recommended).
The Half Child by Kathleen Herson (historical fantasy about a changeling, set in the seventeenth century).
From Tor: Mojo and the Pickle far by Douglas Bell (charming Southwestern fantasy novel).
Sadars Keep by Midori Snyder (second book in an Imaginary World trilogy that is a distinct cut above most in the genre, with terrific character studies).
Mairelon the Magician by Patricia Wrede (charming, witty fantasy set in a magical Regency England).
Street Magic by Michael Reaves (entertaining, thoughtful Urban Fantasy set).
From Villard: Who P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit? by Gary K. Wolf (sequel to the fantasy-detective novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?).
From Vintage: Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson (first American edition of this Magic Realist story of a young man’s coming-of-age, by a young British writer).
From World’s Classics, UK: Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and Peter and Wendy by J. M. Barrie, edited and with an introduction by Peter Hollindale (a new combined edition of Barrie’s droll, classic tales, with the Arthur Rackham cover).
Nineteen ninety-one saw the publication of excellent work in the area of short fantasy fiction, both within the genre and without. It seems that in fantasy fiction, unlike (alas) mainstream fiction, the short story form is alive and well and commercially supported by the readership. Ellen Datlow and I read a wide variety of material over the course of 1991 to choose the stories for this volume, ranging from genre magazines and anthologies to fanzines, small-press and university reviews and foreign works in translation. The stories selected for the fantasy half of this volume were chosen from: the magazines Omni, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Pulphouse and The New Yorker; the literary reviews Grand Street and Winter’s Tales; single-author collections published by St Martin’s, Arcade, Random House and Mercury House; an Axolotl Press limited edition; the’children’s books Vampires and Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch; the anthologies Full Spectrum 3, Catfantastic II, A Whisper of Blood, Once Upon a Time, The Fantastic Adventures of Robin Hood and Colors of a New Day: Writings for South Africa and translations of foreign works first published in Spanish (from the University of Nebraska Press), French (from Grand Street), Russian (from Abbeville Press), and Japanese (from Kodansha International).
In addition to the stories selected for this volume, the following is a baker's dozen of story collections that are particularly recommended to lovers of good short fiction (alphabetically, by publisher):
From Academy Chicago: Visions and Imaginings: Classic Fantasy Fiction edited by Robert H. Boyer and Kenneth J. Zahorski (from the distinguished team of editors who have brought us some of the finest reprint anthologies in the fantasy field).
From Atlantic Monthly: The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories edited by Larry Dark (a splendid, fat, highly recommended collection of twenty-eight ghostly tales by writers such as John Gardner, Paul Bowles, Muriel Spark, Penelope Lively, Joyce Carol Oates, A. S. Byatt, Fay Weldon, Anne Sexton and Steven Millhauser).
From Dedalus UK: The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy: The 19th Century edited by Brian M. Stableford (entries by William Morris, George MacDonald, Disraeli, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Tennyson, Keats, Christina Rossetti and more. Stableford has done a wonderful job; this should be on every fantasy reader’s shelf).
Tales of the Wandering Jew edited by Brian M. Stableford (nine reprinted and eleven original stories, plus two poems by Stableford—with particularly good contributions by Steve Rasnic Tem and Ian McDonald).
From Delacorte: The Door in the Air and Other Stories by Margaret Mahy (nine stories from this amazing New Zealand writer, with illustrations by Diana Catchpole. Originally published by Dent in 1988, this is its first American edition).
From Dutton: A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes edited by Thomas Colchie (an anthology of superlative Latin American stories by Cortazar, Fuentes, Allende, Amada, Marquez and the like. Quite a treat).
From Grafton: The Bone Forest by Robert Holdstock (contains one novella set in the same patch of primal English woodland as his World Fantasy Award-winning novel Mythago Wood, plus seven other stories).
From Kodansha Internationaclass="underline" Beyond the Curve by Kobo Abe (a collection of excellent, strange Japanese stories in translation, many of them with an existentialist SF and fantasy bent).
From Pantheon: Shape-Shifter by Pauline Melville (a collection of twelve literary fantasy stories, reprinted from the 1990 Women’s Press edition which won the Manchester Guardian Prize).
From Rutgers University Press: Green Cane Juicy Flotsam (stories by Caribbean woman writers, several of them Magic Realist in style).
From St. Martin’s Press: More Shapes Than One by Fred Chappell (reprint stories and two originals by this unique and gifted Southern writer).
Fires of the Past edited by Anne Devereaux Jordan (thirteen lovely original contemporary fantasy stories about hometowns).