Songs of a Dead Dreamer - Softcover

Thomas Ligotti

Softcover

ISBN 10: 185487022X ISBN 13: 9781854870223

Publisher: Robinson Publishing,, 1989

Synopsis

Songs of a Dreamer was Thomas Ligotti’s first collection of supernatural horror stories. When originally published in 1985 by Harry Morris’s Silver Scarab Press, the book was hardly noticed. In 1989, an expanded version appeared that garnered accolades from several quarters. Writing in the Washington Post, the celebrated science fiction and fantasy author Michael Swanwick “Put this volume on the shelf right between H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. Where it belongs.” The revisions in the present volume of Songs of a Dead Dreamer have been calculated to make its stories into enhanced incarnations of the originals. This edition is and will remain definitive. For those already familiar with the stories in Songs of a Dead Dreamer, an invitation is extended to return to them in their ultimate state. For those new to the collection, it is submitted to engage them with some of the most extraordinary tales of their kind. In either case, this publication of Songs of a Dead Dreamer offers evidence for why Ligotti has been judged to be among the most important authors in the history of supernatural horror.

Contents:

Dreams for Sleepwalkers:
- The Frolic
- Les Fleurs
- Alice's Last Adventure
- Dream of a Manikin
- The Nyctalops Trilogy:
I. The Chymist
II. Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes
III. Eye of the Lynx
- Notes of the Writing if Horror: A Story

Dreams for Insomniacs:
- The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise
- The Lost Art of Twilight
- The Troubles of Dr. Thoss
- Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie
- Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech
- Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror

Dreams for the Dead:
- Dr. Locrian's Asylum
- The Sect of the Idiot
- The Greater Festival of Masks
- The Music of the Moon
- The Journal of J. P. Drapeau
- Vastarien

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

A reissue of Ligotti's first horror collection, which appeared in a limited edition in 1986, this volume includes several revised stories and others new to the book. Few of them are truly horrific; the emphasis is on language--sometimes poetic, achieving the quality of a woven tapestry, sometimes merely drab. Not one is strong on plot. "Notes on the Writing of Horror" and "Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror" straddle the line between nonfiction and fiction; they contain self-descriptive essays that are evocative of mood and setting. "The Chemyst" has a new drug he shares with London's lowlife. "The Lost Art of Twilight" concerns a man trying to live down his mother's association with vampires. The cleverly titled "Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes" has an equally clever denouement. "Masquerade of a Dead Sword" is heroic fantasy with a twist. "The Music of the Moon" reminds one of Charles Williams's supernatural thriller. The other 13 stories suffer from combinations of murky prose, meaningless events and lack of focus.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Robinson Publishing,
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 185487022X
• ISBN 13: 9781854870223
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 275