Hughes: Stories from a Lost Anthology

Tartarus Press

publishers

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Stories From A Lost Anthology

by

Rhys Hughes

Introduction by Michael Moorcock

Stories From a Lost Anthology is the third collection of tales by Rhys Hughes, an acknowledged master of the strange story, published by Tartarus Press. As in his earlier collections, Worming the Harpy (1995) and The Smell of Telescopes (2000), Hughes’s plotting and puns are frequently outrageous, but somehow, through a strong but warped internal logic, all is made probable, even believable.

Many of the tales in Stories From A Lost Anthology are set in the author’s native Wales, although they may not describe that country as the official guidebooks would have it. Have you ever wondered what happens in the rooms above a Welsh public house? Or to a vampire when it’s polarity is reversed? And how exactly would you kidnap Dylan Thomas, a half-century after his death? As Michael Moorcock says, Hughes is a:

' … daffy Dunsany, full of knowing favours, canny to the calls of a thousand rarees, this modern original is as eccentric as the great eighteenth-century mavericks he sometimes resembles. Few living fictioneers approach this chef's sardonic confections, certainly not in English. Perhaps Calvino comes to mind and The Misfortunes of Elphin offers a few echoes, to mention Meredith's father-in-law again. For me Shagpat and Farina itch at his references, but I suspect he's unfamiliar with Meredith in that droll, un-moral mode. If he's unfamiliar with any work of fiction at all, of course. He has clearly at some point swallowed a library.'

Reviews

'I will refrain from waxing lyrically over any more of the stories found in this collection, although there is much to admire here. Each piece is more varied and wonderful than the last but less striking than the one ahead.' Kayalucia Lauwerys, Cemetery Dance

'More than a collection of non-traditional storytelling and narrative invention, Stories From A Lost Anthology is a challenging assemblage of unique ideas expressed in an unusual, captivating style by an author systematically creating a fresh, unique world by a recasting of elements of the old.' William Simmons, Infinity Plus

'...if you care at all about originality, and fun, and thrills and spills and spellbinding.' Steve Duffy, All Hallows