Search Worlds Without End

An omnibus edition that includes all the stories from Carter's collections Fireworks, The Bloody Chamber, Black Venus, and American Ghosts and Old World Wonders.

One of our most imaginative and accomplished writers, Angela Carter left behind a dazzling array of work: essays, citicism, and fiction. But it is in her short stories that her extraordinary talents--as a fabulist, feminist, social critic, and weaver of tales--are most penetratingly evident. This volume presents Carter's considerable legacy of short fiction gathered from published books, and includes early and previously unpublished stories. From reflections on jazz and Japan, through vigorous refashionings of classic folklore and fairy tales, to stunning snapshots of modern life in all its tawdry glory, we are able to chart the evolution of Carter's marvelous, magical vision.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Burning Your Boats) - (1995) - essay by Salman Rushdie
• EARLY WORK, 1962-6
• The Man Who Loved a Double Bass - (1962)
• A Very, Very Great Lady and Her Son at Home - (1965)
• A Victorian Fable (With Glossary) - (1966)
• FIREWORKS: NINE PROFANE PIECES, 1974
• A Souvenir of Japan - (1974)
• The Executioner's Beautiful Daughter - (1974)
• The Loves of Lady Purple - (1974)
• The Smile of Winter - (1974)
• Penetrating to the Heart of the Forest - (1974)
• Flesh and the Mirror - (1974)
• Master - (1974)
• Reflections - (1974)
• Elegy for a Freelance - (1974)
• THE BLOODY CHAMBER AND OTHER STORIES, 1979
• The Bloody Chamber - (1979)
• The Courtship of Mr. Lyon - (1979)
• The Tiger's Bride - (1979)
• Puss-in-Boots - (1979)
• The Erl-King - (1977)
• The Snow Child - (1979)
• The Lady of the House of Love - (1975)
• The Werewolf - (1977)
• The Company of Wolves - (1977)
• Wolf Alice - (1978)
• BLACK VENUS, 1985
• Black Venus - (1980)
• The Kiss - (1977)
• Our Lady of the Massacre - (1979)
• The Cabinet of Edgar Allan Poe - (1982)
• Overture and Incidental Music for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" - (1982)
• Peter and the Wolf - (1982)
• The Kitchen Child - (1979)
• The Fall River Axe Murders - (1981)
• AMERICAN GHOSTS AND OLD WORLD WONDERS, 1993
• Lizzie's Tiger - (1991)
• John Ford's "'Tis Pity She's a Whore" - (1988)
• Gun for the Devil - (1993)
• The Merchant of Shadows - (1989)
• The Ghost Ships - (1993)
• In Pantoland - (1991)
• Ashputtle or The Mother's Ghost - (1987)
• Alice in Prague or The Curious Room - (1990)
• Impressions: The Wrightsman Magdalene - (1992)
• UNCOLLECTED STORIES, 1970-81
• The Scarlet House - (1977)
• The Snow Pavilion - (1995)
• The Quilt Maker - (1981)
• Afterword (Fireworks) - (1974)

Sharp-eyed Marianne lives in a white tower made of steel and concrete with her father and the other Professors. Outside, where the land is thickly wooded and wild beasts roam, live the Barbarians, who raid and pillage in order to survive. Marianne is strictly forbidden to leave her civilized world but, fascinated by these savage outsiders, decides to escape. There, beyond the wire fences, she will discover a decaying paradise, encounter the tattooed Barbarian boy Jewel and go beyond the darkest limits of her imagination.

Playful, sensuous, violent and gripping, "Heroes and Villains" is an ambiguous and deliriously rich blend of post-apocalyptic fiction, gothic fantasy, literary allusion and twisted romance.

Haunted by Fevvers, child of a brothel, a journalist stumbles into a journey which takes him from London to Siberia via St Petersburg into an earthy, rich, turn-of-the-19th-century world which reeks of human and animal variety.

From familiar fairy tales and legends - Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss-in-Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires, werewolves - Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.

Contains:

• The Bloody Chamber
• The Company of Wolves
• The Courtship of Mr. Lyon
• The Erlking
• The Lady of the House of Love
• The Snow Cild
• The Tiger's Bride
• The Werewolf
• Wolf Alice
• Puss-in-Boots

The transformation of Desiderio's city into a mysterious kingdom is instantaneous: Hallucination flows with magical speed in every brain; avenues and plazas are suddenly as fertile as fairy-book forests. And the evil comes, too, as imaginary massacres fill the streets with blood, the dead return to question the living, and profound anxiety drives hundreds to suicide.

Behind it all stands Doctor Hoffman, whose gigantic generators crack the immutable surfaces of time and space and plunge civilization into a world without the chains – or structures – of reason. Only Desiderio, immune to mirages and fantasy, can defeat him. But Desiderio's battle will take him to the very brink of undeniable, irresistible desire.

From the master of the literary supernatural and author of The Bloody Chamber, a startling tale of the redemptive power of physical and emotional love

One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother's wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the comfortable home of her childhood, she is sent to London to live with relatives she has never met: Aunt Margaret, beautiful and speechless, and her brothers, Francie, whose graceful music belies his clumsy nature, and the volatile Finn, who kisses Melanie in the ruins of the pleasure gardens. And brooding Uncle Philip loves only the life-sized wooden puppets he creates in his toyshop. This classic gothic novel established Angela Carter as one of our most imaginative writers and augurs the themes of her later creative work.

This story follows Evelyn, a young Englishman, along a journey through mythology and sexuality. It is a story of how he learns to be a woman, first in the brutal hands of Zero, the ragtime Nietzsche, then through the ancient Tristessa, the beautiful ghost of Hollywood past.