Terry Brooks. David Eddings. George R. R. Martin. Robin Hobb. The top names in modern fantasy all acknowledge J. R. R. Tolkien as their role model, the author whose work inspired them to create their own epics. But what writers influenced Tolkien himself? Here, internationally recognized Tolkien expert Douglas A. Anderson has gathered the fiction of authors who sparked Tolkien’s imagination in a collection destined to become a classic in its own right. Andrew Lang’s romantic swashbuckler, “The Story of Sigurd,” features magic rings, an enchanted sword, and a brave hero loved by two beautiful women— and cursed by a ferocious dragon. Tolkien read E. A. Wyke-Smith’s “The Marvelous Land of Snergs” to his children, delighting in these charming tales of a pixieish people “only slightly taller than the average table.” Also appearing in this collection is a never-before-published gem by David Lindsay, author of Voyage to Arcturus, a novel which Tolkien praised highly both as a thriller and as a work of philosophy, religion, and morals. In stories packed with magical journeys, conflicted heroes, and terrible beasts, this extraordinary volume is one that no fan of fantasy or Tolkien should be without. These tales just might inspire a new generation of creative writers. Tales Before Tolkien: 22 Magical Stories “The Elves” by Ludwig Tieck “The Golden Key” by George Macdonald “Puss-Cat Mew” by E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” by Frank R. Stockton “The Demon Pope” by Richard Garnett “The Story of Sigurd” by Andrew Lang “The Folk of the Mountain Door” by William Morris “Black Heart and White Heart” by H. Rider Haggard “The Dragon Tamers” by E. Nesbit “The Far Islands” by John Buchan “The Drawn Arrow” by Clemence Housman “The Enchanted Buffalo” by L. Frank Baum “Chu-bu and Sheemish” by Lord Dunsany “The Baumhoff Explosive” by William Hope Hodgson “The Regent of the North” by Kenneth Morris “The Coming of the Terror” by Arthur Machen “The Elf Trap” by Francis Stevens “The Thin Queen of Elfhame” by James Branch Cabell “The Woman of the Wood” by A. Merritt “Golithos the Ogre” by E. A. Wyke-Smith “The Story of Alwina” by Austin Tappan Wright “A Christmas Play” by David Lindsay

Ever since men first hunted for honeycomb in rocks and daubed pictures of it on cave walls, the honeybee has been seen as one of the wonders of nature: social, industrious, beautiful, terrifying. No other creature has inspired in humans an identification so passionate, persistent, or fantastical. The Hive recounts the astonishing tale of all the weird and wonderful things that humans believed about bees and their "society" over the ages. It ranges from the honey delta of ancient Egypt to the Tupelo forests of modern Florida, taking in a cast of characters including Alexander the Great and Napoleon, Sherlock Holmes and Muhammed Ali. The history of humans and honeybees is also a history of ideas, taking us through the evolution of science, religion, and politics, and a social history that explores the bee's impact on food and human ritual. In this beautifully illustrated book, Bee Wilson shows how humans will always view the hive as a miniature universe with order and purpose, and look to it to make sense of their own.

"Simply superb" - Jack Zipes Griffins, wizards, dryads and fairies; banished kings, misguided queens and mysterious bee-men: the curious characters who populated Frank Stockton's fanciful fairy tale worlds once delighted generations of readers on both sides of the Atlantic. When he died in 1902 the New York Times lamented, "It is not easy to imagine any greater loss to American letters." Yet despite his profound significance for the development of the fairy tale, and his direct influence on American fantasy classics like The Wizard of Oz, Frank Stockton's trailblazing stories have fallen out of print. Now, readers young and old can once again enjoy his beloved stories in this new edition of his most celebrated collection, The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales, first published in 1887 - complete with a biographical introduction which explains Stockton's profound importance to the story of fantasy literature. Edited by Hilary Emmett & Thomas Ruys Smith in collaboration with students from the Department of American Studies at UEA. "Stockton (1834-1902) was one of the first American writers to pioneer unique fantasy tales and novels at the end of the nineteenth century. Influenced by Hans Christian Andersen, he transcended the Danish writer's works, and thanks to the East Anglian collective effort, we can see how significant Stockton's imaginative works are."- Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota and author of Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales "If you've wept too many tears over the Little Mermaid and if you've spent sleepless nights worrying about evil stepmothers but still long for fairy-tale magic, you're ready to enter Frank Stockton's universe of beekeepers and griffins, dryads and dwarfs. In these kingdoms, everything imaginable goes wrong, and, providentially, the quests and journeys of his characters are designed to make things right again. If you want more intelligent children, ready to think more and think harder about the life choices we make, read them Stockton's fairy tales, stories that create the safe space of "once upon a time" for all generations."- Maria Tatar, Professor Emerita of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University, author of The Heroine with 1001 Faces and editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Classic Fairy Tales. "This edition will enlighten and entertain readers of classic fairy tales by introducing them to America's Hans Christian Andersen, Frank Stockton. The nine tales, originally published in St Nicholas Magazine in the 1880s, are contextualised by a richly researched introduction that explains how Stockton made a distinctive contribution to American fantasy for both adult and child readers."- Michelle Smith, editor of Literary Cultures and Nineteenth-Century Childhoods

In his latest book, fairy tales expert Jack Zipes explores the question of why some fairy tales "work" and others don't, why the fairy tale is uniquely capable of getting under the skin of culture and staying there. Why, in other words, fairy tales "stick." Long an advocate of the fairy tale as a serious genre with wide social and cultural ramifications, Jack Zipes here makes his strongest case for the idea of the fairy tale not just as a collection of stories for children but a profoundly important genre. Why Fairy Tales Stick contains two chapters on the history and theory of the genre, followed by case studies of famous tales (including Cinderella, Snow White, and Bluebeard), followed by a summary chapter on the problematic nature of traditional storytelling in the twenty-first century.