The October Country
The October Country is a 1955 collection of nineteen macabre short stories by American writer Ray Bradbury. It reprints fifteen of the twenty-seven stories of his 1947 collection Dark Carnival, and adds four more of his stories previously published elsewhere.
The collection was published in numerous editions by Ballantine Books. The 1955 hardcover and 1956 and 1962 softcover versions featured artwork by Joseph Mugnaini that was replaced in 1971 by an entirely different Bob Pepper illustration. It was again published in 1996, by Del Rey Books, a branch of Ballantine Books; the illustrations within were drawn by Mugnaini. In this edition there was a foreword written by Bradbury himself, called "May I Die Before My Voices", in Los Angeles, California, on April 24, 1996.
The October Country was published in the United Kingdom by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. in 1956, and reissued in 1976 by Grafton, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. The 1976 UK paperback edition includes "The Traveler", originally from the aforementioned Dark Carnival, and omits "The Next In Line", "The Lake", "The Small Assassin", "The Crowd", "Jack-In-The-Box", "The Man Upstairs" and "The Cistern".[2]
In 1999, The October Country was published by Avon Books, Inc. with a new cover illustration by Joseph Mugnaini, and a new introduction by Bradbury called "Homesteading the October Country".
Contents
- "The Dwarf"
- The proprietor of a Mirror Maze and the proprietor of a hoop circus at the same carnival observe a dwarf who uses one of the mirrors to make himself appear taller.[2]: 1–16
- "The Next in Line"
- A couple staying in a small Mexican town comes across a cemetery which holds a shocking policy regarding the interred whose families cannot pay.
- "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse"
- A thoroughly dull man becomes the new avant garde craze precisely because he is boring.
- "Skeleton"
- A man becomes convinced his skeleton is out to ruin him, and consults an unorthodox specialist.
- "The Jar"
- A poor farmer buys a jar with something floating in it for twelve dollars and it soon becomes the conversation piece of the town. However his wife begins to realize that she cannot stand the jar or him.
- "The Lake"
- A man revisits his childhood home and recalls a friend who drowned in a lake during childhood.
- "The Emissary"
- A sick boy who cannot go outside has only two connections to the world, his dog and a woman who lives in the neighborhood. However the neighbor dies and the dog inexplicably runs off.
- "Touched With Fire"
- Two old men make it their mission to push fulfillment on unhappy people. They unsuccessfully try to do so with a woman whose story ends bloodily. It was first published under the title "Shopping for Death".
- "The Small Assassin"
- A woman becomes convinced her newborn baby is out to kill her.
- "The Crowd"
- A man discovers something odd about the crowds that form around accidents.
- "Jack-in-the-Box"
- A boy lives with his mother in a vast secluded mansion. She raises him to be God after telling him his father, the original God, was killed by beasts outside.
- "The Scythe"
- A man comes into possession of a powerful scythe and a wheat field. He discovers that the task of reaping is more than meets the eye.
- "Uncle Einar"
- One of two stories in this collection to feature members of the Elliott family, a collection of movie monsters and immortal beings. This story focuses on a character named Uncle Einar, who tries to find a way into the skies after damaging his biological radar.
- "The Wind"
- A former travel writer becomes mortally afraid that the winds he has defied around the world are gathering to kill him.
- "The Man Upstairs"
- A young boy suspects the man renting the upper room of his house to be more than a man.
- "There Was an Old Woman"
- There was an old woman who defied death for years. Death tricked her one-day and stole her body but she wasn't going to let that stop her.
- "The Cistern"
- A woman describes to her sister how magical the land beneath the sewer must be, where lovers are reunited in death, torture and anguish.
- "Homecoming"
- The main story concerning the supernatural Elliott family. It chronicles their return to the ancestral home in Illinois for a gathering, and is seen through the eyes of Timothy, a mortal child left on their doorstep and who longs to be like them. Einar from "Uncle Einar" figures prominently. The story later formed the basis for the 2001 novel From the Dust Returned, which also incorporated the "Uncle Einar" story in its narrative.
- "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone"
- Fans track down a writer who chose to withdraw into seclusion and cease writing, and get his story from him.
See also
- Bibliography of Halloween
Citations
- ^ "Books Today". The New York Times. November 16, 1955. p. 32.
- ^ a b Bradbury, Ray (1976). The October Country. London: Grafton. ISBN 0586042296.
General and cited sources
- Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 63. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
- Bradbury, Ray. (1999). The October Country. New York: Avon Books, Inc. ISBN 0-380-97387-1.
External links
- The October Country title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- v
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- The Martian Chronicles (1950)
- Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
- Dandelion Wine (1957)
- Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962)
- The Halloween Tree (1972)
- Death Is a Lonely Business (1985)
- A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990)
- Green Shadows, White Whale (1992)
- From the Dust Returned (2001)
- Let's All Kill Constance (2002)
- Farewell Summer (2006)
- "Hollerbochen's Dilemma" (1938)
- "The Scythe" (1943)
- "I, Rocket" (1944)
- "The Lake" (1944)
- "Frost and Fire" (1946)
- "The Million Year Picnic" (1946)
- "The Small Assassin" (1946)
- "I See You Never" (1947)
- "Fever Dream" (1948)
- "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" (1948)
- "The Long Years" (1948)
- "Mars Is Heaven!" (1948)
- "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" (1949)
- "The Exiles" (1949)
- "Marionettes, Inc." (1949)
- "The Long Rain" (1950)
- "The Rocket" (1950)
- "There Will Come Soft Rains" (1950)
- "The Veldt" (1950)
- "Ylla" (1950)
- "Embroidery" (1951)
- "The Fog Horn" (1951)
- "Here There Be Tygers" (1951)
- "The Pedestrian" (1951)
- "The April Witch" (1952)
- "A Sound of Thunder" (1952)
- "The Wilderness" (1952)
- "The Flying Machine" (1953)
- "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind" (1953)
- "The Meadow" (1953)
- "The Murderer" (1953)
- "Sun and Shadow" (1953)
- "All Summer in a Day" (1954)
- "The Dragon" (1955)
- "The Aqueduct" (1979)
- "Banshee" (1984)
- "The Toynbee Convector" (1984)
- "Is That You, Herb?" (2003)
- Dark Carnival (1947)
- The Illustrated Man (1951)
- The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)
- The October Country (1955)
- A Medicine for Melancholy (1959)
- The Day It Rained Forever (1959)
- The Small Assassin (1962)
- R Is for Rocket (1962)
- The Machineries of Joy (1964)
- The Vintage Bradbury (1965)
- S Is for Space (1966)
- Twice 22 (1966)
- I Sing the Body Electric! (1969)
- Ray Bradbury (1975)
- Long After Midnight (1976)
- The Fog Horn & Other Stories (1979)
- The Last Circus and the Electrocution (1980)
- The Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980)
- The Fog Horn and Other Stories (1980)
- Dinosaur Tales (1983)
- A Memory of Murder (1984)
- The Toynbee Convector (1988)
- Classic Stories 1 (1990)
- Classic Stories 2 (1990)
- The Parrot Who Met Papa (1991)
- Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (1991)
- Quicker Than the Eye (1996)
- Driving Blind (1997)
- Ray Bradbury Collected Short Stories (2001)
- One More for the Road (2002)
- Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (2003)
- The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004)
- A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories (2005)
- The Dragon Who Ate His Tail (2007)
- Summer Morning, Summer Night (2007)
- A Pleasure to Burn (2010)
- The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury (2011, 2014)
- The Meadow (1947)
- The Flying Machine: A One-Act Play for Three Men (1953)
- The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays (1972)
- Pillar of Fire and Other Plays (1975)
- The Martian Chronicles (1986)
- The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1986)
- Fahrenheit 451 (1986)
- Dandelion Wine (1988)
- The Veldt (1988)
- It Came from Outer Space (1953)
- Moby Dick (1956 screenplay)
- "I Sing the Body Electric" (1962)
- The Autumn People (1965)
- Tomorrow Midnight (1966)
- Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
- The Picasso Summer (1969)
- The Illustrated Man (1969)
- The Martian Chronicles (1980 miniseries)
- The Electric Grandmother (1982)
- Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
- Bradbury 13 (radio series, 1983–84)
- Fahrenheit 451 (1984)
- "The Burning Man" (1985)
- The Veldt (1987)
- The Ray Bradbury Theater (TV series, 1985–86, 1988-1992)
- The Halloween Tree (1993)
- Dandelion Wine (1997)
- The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998)
- A Sound of Thunder (2005)
- Ray Bradbury's Chrysalis (2008)
- The Whispers (2015)
- Fahrenheit 451 (2018)
- Futuria Fantasia (1939–1940)
- The Mummies of Guanajuato (1978)
- Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)
- It Came from Outer Space (2003 book)
- Bettina F. Bradbury (daughter)
- Spaceship Earth
- Ray Bradbury Center
- Bradbury Landing
- Ray Bradbury Award
- Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
- Dandelion crater