From the ancient tales of gods and heroes from long-dead civilizations to the wild success of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, fantasy has fired our imaginations for as long as there has been story. Whether sweeping sagas of fantastic adventures or cautionary tales told around the campfire, fantasy is deeply wovwn into the very fabric og humanity, wearing many faces and coming in many flavors.

But what fantasy is distinctly American?

This comprehensive critical anthology of American fantasy literature applies the groundbreaking theories of such esteemed American literary critics as Leslie Fiedler, Richard Chase, and Irving Howe to the genre of fantasy in an effort to distinguish the American tradition of fantasy from the better known Anglo-European canon, by classifying it into three distinctive strains:

• The American Tale - Folk, Tall, and Weird
• Fantastic Americana
• Lands of Enchantment and Everyday Life

Edited by Brian M. Thomsen.

Contents:

• This Changed Everything (poem) by Gerald Bair
• Foreword
• Introduction: An Approach to an American Fantasy Tradition

  Part One: Folk, Tall and Weird Tales

• Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving
• Feathertop: A Moralized Legend by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris
• The Saga of Pecos Bill by Edward O'Reilly
• Rosy's Journey by Louisa May Alcott
• The Yellow Sign by Robert W. Chambers
• The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft
• O Ugly Bird! by Manly Wade Wellman
• The Fool by David Drake
• Narrow Valley by R.A. Lafferty
• Jackalope by Alan Dean Foster
• The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
• Children of the Corn by Stephen King
• Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight by Ursula K. Le Guin

  Part Two: Fantastic Americana

• The Jolly Corner by Henry James
• A Ghost Story by Mark Twain
• Ma'ame Pelagie by Kate Chopin
• The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet
• The Valley Was Still by Manly Wade Wellman
• The Howling Man by Charles Beaumont
• Twenty-Three by Avram Davidson
• We Are the Dead by Henry Kuttner
• Where the Summer Ends by Karl Edward Wagner
• Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa by W.P. Kinsella
• Hatrack River by Orson Scott Card
• The Hero of the Night by Bradley Denton
• The Whimper of Whipped Dogs by Harlan Ellison

  Part Three: Lands of Enchantment and Everyday Life

• The Griffin and the Minor Canon by Frank Stockton
• The Enchanted Buffalo by L. Frank Baum
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• The Moving Finger by Edith Wharton
• Slow Sculpture by Theodore Sturgeon
• The Coin Collector by Jack Finney
• Prey by Richard Matheson
• The Geezenstacks by Fredric Brown
• Paladin of the Lost Hour by Harlan Ellison
• The Black Ferris by Ray Bradbury
• Bed and Breakfast by Gene Wolfe
• Dead Run by Greg Bear
• Her Pigrim Soul by Alan Brennert
• Mrs. Todd's Shortcut by Stephen King
• Among the Handlers by Michael Bishop
• Select Critical Bibliography