The October Country
Encyclopedia
The October Country is a 1955
collection of nineteen macabre
short stories by 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 1954 hardcover and 1956 and 1962 softcover versions featured artwork by Joe Mugniani 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 Joe Mugniani. In this edition there was a foreword
written by Ray Bradbury himself, called "May I Die Before My Voice" 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".
In 1999, this title was published by Avon Books, Inc.
with a new introduction written by Ray Bradbury
from Los Angeles, California
, in January of the same year called “Homesteading the October Country” and a new cover illustration by Joe Mugnaini.
"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 which 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 wings.
"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 Elliott family. It concerns 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 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.
1955 in literature
The year 1955 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*28 May - Philip Larkin makes a train journey from Hull to London which inspires his poem The Whitsun Weddings....
collection of nineteen macabre
Macabre
In works of art, macabre is the quality of having a grim or ghastly atmosphere. Macabre works emphasize the details and symbols of death....
short stories by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
. 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
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
. The 1954 hardcover and 1956 and 1962 softcover versions featured artwork by Joe Mugniani that was replaced in 1971 by an entirely different Bob Pepper
Bob Pepper
Robert Ernest Pepper was a pitcher in Major League Baseball. He played one game for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1915.-External links:...
illustration. It was again published in 1996, by Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...
, a branch of Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
; the illustrations within were drawn by Joe Mugniani. In this edition there was a foreword
Foreword
A foreword is a piece of writing sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the writer of the foreword and the book's primary author or the story the book tells...
written by Ray Bradbury himself, called "May I Die Before My Voice" in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, on April 24, 1996.
The October Country was published in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. in 1956, and reissued in 1976 by Grafton
Grafton (publisher)
Grafton was a British paperback imprint established circa 1981 by Granada Publishing Ltd, a subsidiary of media company Granada Group Ltd. It was named after the publishing company's then address, 8 Grafton Street, in central London...
, 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".
In 1999, this title was published by Avon Books, Inc.
Avon (publishers)
Avon Publications was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. As of 2010, it is an imprint of HarperCollins, publishing primarily romance novels.-History:...
with a new introduction written by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
from Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, in January of the same year called “Homesteading the October Country” and a new cover illustration by Joe Mugnaini.
Contents
"The Dwarf":The owner of a Hall of Mirrors and a young carnival-goer observe a dwarf who uses the mirrors to make himself seem taller."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
The Small Assassin (short story)
"The Small Assassin" is a short story by American author Ray Bradbury. It was first published in the November, 1946 issue of Dime Mystery. It was collected in Bradbury's anthology Dark Carnival and later collected in the anthologies The October Country, The Small Assassin, The Stories of Ray...
":A woman becomes convinced her newborn baby is out to kill her.
"The Crowd":A man discovers something odd about the crowds which 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
The Scythe (short story)
"The Scythe" is a short story by American author Ray Bradbury. It was originally published in the July, 1943 issue of Weird Tales. It was first collected in Bradbury's anthology Dark Carnival and later collected in The October Country and The Stories of Ray Bradbury.The story was referenced in the...
":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 wings.
"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 Elliott family. It concerns 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 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
From the Dust Returned
From the Dust Returned is a fix-up fantasy novel by Ray Bradbury. The novel is largely comprised from a series of short stories which Bradbury had written decades earlier, centering around a family of Illinois-based ghosts named the Elliotts...
, 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.