Bedtime Stories

As Scheherezade proved long ago, good stories make the best bedtime entertainment. The tales collected here represent the essence of the storytellerrs"s art, with its ancient roots in fantastical legends and tales told around a fire. InBedtime Stories,great writers of the past two centuries explore the boundaries between the real and the unreal, between waking and dreaming. From the surreal night visions of Nathaniel Hawthorners"s "Young Goodman Brown" to the unspeakable horror that haunts two little girls in A. S. Byattrs"s "The Thing in the Forest," from Washington Irvingrs"s comical "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" to Ursula K. LeGuinrs"s sly perspective on Sleeping Beauty in "The Poacher," these spellbinding stories transform the stuff of fables and fairy tales into high art. Isak Dinesen, Vladimir Nabokov, Angela Carter, Julio Cortaacute;zar, Steven Millhauser, Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami, and many more mingle their voices in this one-volume gateway to dreams--the perfect bedside companion for fiction lovers everywhere.

Diana Secker Tesdell is the editor of the Everyman’s Pocket Classics Christmas Stories, Love Stories, Dog Stories, and Stories of the Sea.

 
A. S. Byatt, “The Thing in the Forest”

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”

Neil Gaiman, “Troll Bridge”

Ursula K. LeGuin, “The Poacher”

Isak Dinesen, “The Sailor-Boy’s Tale”

Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Bottle Imp”

William Maxwell, “The Industrious Tailor”

Vladimir Nabokov, “Dragon”

Guy de Maupassant, “Night”

Lord Dunsany, “Where the Tides Ebb and Flow”

Julio Cortázar, “The Night Face Up”

Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

H. G. Wells, “The Country of the Blind” 

Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Steven Millhauser, “The Visit”

Angela Carter, “The Tiger’s Bride”

Haruki Murakami, “The Dancing Dwarf”