Detective Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover is the most idle and avaricious hero in all of crime fiction. Honestly, why should he even be bothered to solve the case? Collected here are eleven unforgettable short stories in the Dover series, from the 1969 story ‘Dover Pulls a Rabbit’, to ‘A Souvenir for Dover’. Editorial reviews: “Something quite out of the ordinary.” Daily Telegraph “Joyce Porter is a joy... Dover is unquestionably the most entertaining detective in fiction.” Guardian “Plotted with the technique of a virtuoso.” New York Times “Wonderfully funny.” Spectator “Dover is wildly, joyously unbelievable; and may he remain so for our comic delight.” Sun “You will be fascinated by his sheer dazzling incompetence. Porter has a keen eye, a wicked sense of comedy, and a delightfully low mind.” Harper’s

Detective Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover is the most idle and avaricious hero in all of crime fiction. Honestly, why should he even be bothered to solve the case? Collected here are eleven unforgettable short stories in the Dover series, from the 1969 story ‘Dover Pulls a Rabbit’, to ‘A Souvenir for Dover’. Editorial reviews: “Something quite out of the ordinary.” Daily Telegraph “Joyce Porter is a joy... Dover is unquestionably the most entertaining detective in fiction.” Guardian “Plotted with the technique of a virtuoso.” New York Times “Wonderfully funny.” Spectator “Dover is wildly, joyously unbelievable; and may he remain so for our comic delight.” Sun “You will be fascinated by his sheer dazzling incompetence. Porter has a keen eye, a wicked sense of comedy, and a delightfully low mind.” Harper’s

Detective Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover is the most idle and avaricious hero in all of crime fiction. Why should he even be bothered to solve the case? The naked, burned and mutilated body of a middle-aged man has been found at the Muncaster Municipal Dump. When the autopsy reveals a peculiar clue, DCI Dover and his ever-unwilling assistant MacGregor set off on a trail that leads them to a squalid seaside resort. A mysterious organization, they learn, had convened there recently. Their inquiries bring them smack into the midst of an undercover investigation by Special Branch of a dangerous right-wing secret society. Never before has Dover been in such an equivocal spot. Though a vicious murder cries out to be solved, one doesn’t readily tamper with Dover’s legendary inertia. Editorial reviews: “Something quite out of the ordinary.” Daily Telegraph “Joyce Porter is a joy... Dover is unquestionably the most entertaining detective in fiction.” Guardian “Plotted with the technique of a virtuoso.” New York Times “Wonderfully funny.” Spectator “Dover is wildly, joyously unbelievable; and may he remain so for our comic delight.” Sun “You will be fascinated by his sheer dazzling incompetence. Porter has a keen eye, a wicked sense of comedy, and a delightfully low mind.” Harper’s

Complete texts of "The Happy Prince and Other Tales," "A House of Pomegranates," "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories," "Poems in Prose," and "The Portrait of Mr. W. H."

A farm family in northern New Jersey is constantly shaken by a new airport. Supernatural activity, noise, and fear forces the family to relocate their farm to rural Northeastern Pennsylvania. An ironic and twisted ending. People in northern Montana are disappearing, especially when those lights appear in the "Big Sky." An investigative reporter discovers it's happening in every state. He then discovers a government conspiracy and a secret ancient society. The rest is yummy, but not for him. An archeologist in Tibet discovers a new species of terrestrial worm averaging 20 feet in length and 2 feet in diameter. He collects some eggs and returns to his home on the Palisades in Alpine New Jersey. He buries the eggs along the Palisades and is soon overrun with these giant worms, so he harvests them for a fishermen's bait and becomes very wealthy with a chain of bait stores. Later his worms are found to be very intelligent and have an agenda. In a humorous twist, the worm meat is found to cure insanity and Washington D.C. has an epiphany. What's with the cartons of Pall Mall cigarettes piled high? The children in ancient Egypt are stricken with a flue like virus. The following generations of boys started wearing skirts and have no interest in girls. Soon the great dynasty went into decline as the population decreased. Other empires suffered the same fate until modern science explained the reason, and embraced the virus for population control. A humorous and outrageous take on homosexuality. A glitch in software at a dictionary publisher turns out a prototype copy with half the words given the wrong definitions. The one defective copy is accidentally placed in a child's backpack. While on vacation in the South Pacific the editor and his young sons are marooned on an uncharted island when their high speed boat crashes into a rocky beach. The editor suffers a head injury and his young sons must fend for themselves. The only source of education is the defective dictionary in the child's backpack. They are rescued after 10 years and return to the United States, the boys are teens, and dad lost most of his marbles. They become wards of their uncle, and when they enter society, their scrambled words make for a hilarious chain of events. Unending, with a twist.

Contents include unabridged texts of "The Man Who Was Thursday "and" The Club of Queer Trades"; the classic study of Christian morality, " Orthodoxy"; a selection of Father Brown stories; and several essays.

Five powerful stories: "Free," the story of a man trying, as his wife lies dying, to understand why he never found happiness in marriage plus "The Second Choice," "Married," "Nigger Jeff," and "The Lost Phœbe."