Published in 1995
560 pages
What is this book about?
Fantasy has come to mean different things to different people – for some it is a descent into the unconscious, an expression of repressed fears or desires; for others it is an exploration of new territories, frightening and fertile landscapes inhabited by playful and provocative beings who draw the reader into a fascinating web of morality and myth. In her challenging Introduction, Joanna Russ describes Fantasy as “the most realistic of all the arts, expressing as it does the contents of human souls directly”. This anthology aims to show that Fantasy has also been an important vehicle for women, who have used it to express their creative diversity, without having to be boxed in and categorized by a male-dominated literary establishment.
The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women is a reprint anthology of stories edited by A. Susan Williams and Richard Glyn Jones. It was published by Viking Press in May 1995. The anthology contains a wide number of stories by female authors throughout the 20th century, beginning with The Demon Lover (1941), and the stories are arranged chronologically. The anthology itself won the 1996 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.
Contents:
Sources and Acknowledgements • uncredited essay
Introduction • essay by Joanna Russ
Editors’ Note • essay by Richard Glyn Jones and A. Susan Williams
The Demon Lover • (1941) • short story by Elizabeth Bowen
The Tooth • (1949) • short story by Shirley Jackson
The Lake of the Gone Forever • (1949) • novelette by Leigh Brackett
The Old Man • (1952) • short story by Daphne du Maurier
My Flannel Knickers • (1988) • short story by Leonora Carrington
The Anything Box • (1956) • short story by Zenna Henderson
Miss Pinkerton’s Apocalypse • (1958) • short story by Muriel Spark
A Bright Green Field • (1958) • short story by Anna Kavan
The Ship Who Sang (The Ship Who … series) • (1961) • novelette by Anne McCaffrey
Marmalade Wine • (1958) • short story by Joan Aiken
The Fall of Frenchy Steiner • (1964) • novelette by Hilary Bailey
Cynosure • (1964) • short story by Kit Reed
The Wall • (1965) • short story by Josephine Saxton
The Foot • (1967) • short story by Christine Brooke-Rose
Baby, You Were Great • (1967) • short story by Kate Wilhelm (variant of Baby, You Were Great!)
The Second Inquisition (Alyx) • (1970) • novelette by Joanna Russ
Murder, 1986 • (1970) • novelette by P. D. James
The Milk of Paradise • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
When It Happens • non-genre • (1975) • short story by Margaret Atwood
Angel, All Innocence • (1977) • short story by Fay Weldon
Night-Side • (1977) • novelette by Joyce Carol Oates
Fireflood • (1979) • novelette by Vonda N. McIntyre
Wives • (1979) • short story by Lisa Tuttle
Red as Blood • (1979) • short story by Tanith Lee
Sur • (1982) • short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
Peter and the Wolf • (1982) • short story by Angela Carter
The Pits Beneath the World • (1983) • short story by Mary Gentle
Two Sheep • (1983) • short story by Janet Frame
Relics • (1985) • short story by Zoe Fairbairns
The Evening and the Morning and the Night • (1987) • novelette by Octavia E. Butler
(Learning About) Machine Sex • (1988) • short story by Candas Jane Dorsey
Prodigal Pudding • (1988) • short fiction by Suniti Namjoshi
Boobs • (1989) • short story by Suzy McKee Charnas
If the Word Was to the Wise • (1990) • short story by Carol Emshwiller
Trial by Teaspoon • (1992) • short story by Lynda Rajan
In the Green Shade of a Bee-Loud Glade • (1993) • short story by L. A. Hall
Death in the Egg • (1994) • short story by Ann Oakley
Kay and Phil • (1994) • novelette by Lucy Sussex (variant of Kay & Phil)
