Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0964832070, Paperback)

Stories and essays spanning the career of one of fantasy's finest writers. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction by Patricia A. McKillip Stories: Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros, Come Lady Death, Lila the Werewolf, Julie's Unicorn, and The Naga. Early Stories: Pittsburgh Stories , Telephone Call, and My Daughter's Name is Sarah. Essays: Learning a Trade, My Last Heroes, D.H. Lawrence in Taos and The Poor People's Campaign. BACK COVER: . . . Mixes classic tales with new gems, early stories, and various nonfiction. Beagle's essay about D.H. Lawrence in Taos is worth the price of the book. - The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: 11th Annual Collection

. . . This collection proves just how essential Beagle is to modern fantasy. Without Beagle's early example we'd have no Blaylock or Powers . . . A story like "The Naga" is worthy of inclusion in the Arabian Nights. - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine

. . . A nicely-designed collection of Peter Beagle's best short work. - Mythprint

Peter S. Beagle is the magician we all apprenticed ourselves to. Before all the endless series and shared-world novels, Beagle was there to show us the amazing possibilities waiting in the worlds of fantasy, and he is still one of the masters by which the rest of the field is measured. I envy people reading these stories for the first time. -Lisa Goldstein

Peter S. Beagle would be one of the century's great writers in any arena he chose; we readers must feel blessed that Beagle picked fantasy as a homeland. Magic pumps like blood through the veins of his stories. Imparting passionately breathing, singing, laughing reality to the marvelous is his great gift to us all. -Edward Bryant

Peter S. Beagle is our best modern fabulist in the tradition of Hawthorne and Twain. From the dark pride in the story "Come Lady Death" to the dignity and love rising from a rhino-emblazoned philosophy, the stories in this book make the Fantastic become real, the Real both dark and lovely. -Jack Cady

Peter S. Beagle is (in no particular order) a wonderful writer, a fine human being, and a bandit prince out to steal readers' hearts. -Tad Williams

. . . one of my favorite writers. -Madeleine L'Engle

Peter S. Beagle illuminates with his own particular magic such commonplace matters as ghosts, unicorns, and werewolves. For years a loving readership has consulted him as an expert on those hearts' reasons that reason does not know. -Ursula K. Le Guin