The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

INTRODUCTION
by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
 
THE QUEEN S SON
Bettina von Arnim
 
HANS-MY-HEDGEHOG
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
 
THE STORY OF THE HARD NUT
E. T. A. Hoffmann
 
RIP VAN WINKLE
Washington Irving
 
THE LUCK OF THE BEAN-ROWS
Charles Nodier
 
TRANSFORMATION
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
 
THE NEST OF NIGHTINGALES
Théophile Gautier
 
THE FAIRYTALE ABOUT A DEAD BODY, BELONGING TO NO ONE KNOWS WHOM
Vladimir Odoevsky
 
THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON
Charles Dickens
 
THE NOSE
Nikolai Gogol
 
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR
Edgar Allan Poe
 
THE STORY OF JEON UNCHI
Anonymous
 
FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND
Nathaniel Hawthorne
 
MASTER ZACHARIUS
Jules Verne
 
THE FROST-KING: OR, THE POWER OF LOVE
Louisa May Alcott
 
THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS
Herman Melville
 
THE MAGIC MIRROR
George MacDonald
 
THE DIAMOND LENS
Fitz-James O Brien
 
GOBLIN MARKET
Christina Rossetti
 
THE WILL-O -THE-WISPS ARE IN TOWN
Hans Christian Andersen
 
THE LEGEND OF THE PALE MAIDEN
Aleksis Kivi
 
LOOKING-GLASS HOUSE
Lewis Carroll
 
FURNICA, OR THE QUEEN OF THE ANTS
Carmen Sylva
 
THE STORY OF IVÁN THE FOOL
Leo Tolstoy
 
THE GOOPHERED GRAPEVINE
Charles W. Chestnutt
 
THE BEE-MAN OF ORN
Frank R. Stockton
 
THE REMARKABLE ROCKET
Oscar Wilde
 
THE ENSOULED VIOLIN
H. P. Blavatskaya
 
THE DEATH OF ODJIGH
Marcel Schwob
 
THE TERRESTRIAL FIRE
Marcel Schwob
 
THE KINGDOM OF CARDS
Rabindranath Tagore
 
THE OTHER SIDE: A BRETON LEGEND
Count Eric Stanlislaus Stenbock
 
THE FULNESS OF LIFE
Edith Wharton
 
PRINCE ALBERIC AND THE SNAKE LADY
Vernon Lee
 
THE LITTLE ROOM
Madeline Yale Wynne

ANN VANDERMEER currently serves as an acquiring editor for Tor.com and Weird Fiction Review and is the editor-in-residence for Shared Worlds. She was the editor-in-chief for Weird Tales for five years, work for which she won a Hugo Award. She also has won a World Fantasy Award and a British Fantasy Award for coediting The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories.

JEFF VANDERMEER is the New York Times bestselling author of the Southern Reach trilogy, the first novel of which, Annihilation, won the Shirley Jackson Award and was made into a film by Paramount Pictures. His recent novel Borne has been selected for the NEA Big Reads program and was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

The VanderMeers have compiled an eminently readable collection of stories from authors around the world, seeking to introduce fantasy lovers to many rarely seen and underappreciated gems while still including a handful of more well-known authors to balance the mix. . . . This quintessential anthology is destined to become the standard by which future fantasy classic anthologies are measured. . . . [A] must-have anthology.
Kirkus Reviews, SF/F/H Novels, Short Stories, and Sequels to Look for in July

The VanderMeers bring to fantasy the same monumental efforts at curation and translation that brought about the massive, absolutely essential 2016 anthology The Big Book of Science Fiction. . . . [This] collection traces the development of an entire genre and places it into glorious context.
Tor
 
Invaluable. . . . Varied and textured examples of fantasy in literature that readers and students may not have been exposed to previously.
The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

An impressive cross-section of early fantasy in this fascinating anthology of 90 stories. . . . This sweeping panorama of fantasy is a must-have for those interested in the roots of modern fantasy, and it gives a welcome introduction to many unexpected delights.
Publishers Weekly

Dozens upon dozens of seminal fantasy stories, some well-known and others delightfully rescued from obscurity. . . . Like its SF counterpart, this dense and exhaustive collection would serve as an admirable survey course for the genre.
Kirkus Reviews