Out of This World

An anthology of unbelievable tales - fantasy of yesterday and today and tomorrow - collected by Sergeant Julius Fast at an Army Camp, and tested on his fellow soldiers.


There are two John Collier stories - "Evening Primrose", the eerie tale of a poet who lived in a department store, and "Thus I Refute Beelzy", the savage study of a sadistic parent and the difference between reality and unreality. There's Oscar Wilde's delightful satire on the ways of phantom and Americans, "The Canterville Ghost". The incomparable Eric Knight is represented by "Sam Smalls's Tyke", in wich Sam tangles with a talking dog, a strange girl, gossiping neighbors, and an angry wife. There's Stephen Vincent Benet's famous "The King of the Cats", and Saki's shuddery small masterpiece, "Laura". And there are eight othen stories by writers as various as Jack London, Lord Dunsany, and H. G. Wells. Only one thing binds these stories together, says the author, "and that is unreality".


"In one sense", says Julius Fast, "they're very profound. In another they're just good entertainment."