Whimsical Tales

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The plain was covered by a multitude of skeletons moving about in the most extreme confusion. It was a jumble of shins, femurs, ribs, skulls, coming or going in all directions and moving with unparalleled vivacity. From the high place where I stood all these skeletons largely resembled an immense field of rapeseed whose whitened stems, shaken by the wind, crisscrossed each other in all directions.

Contes fantaisistes, originally published in 1885, and here translated for the first time into English by Shawn Garrett as Whimsical Tales, is the only known book by the mysterious author Jean Printemps.

In this collection of fanciful stories, a large number of which might be said to fall into the category of droll horror, the reader is treated to phantom hunts and freaks, bizarre happenings and risky bets, in a hearty buffet of both dreams and nightmares. Many of the entries, such as The Battle of the Dead, which concerns a combat among skeletons, feature military situations, which might lend a clue as to the author’s background.

With its interweaving of humor and dread, legend and anecdote, depths and shallows, Whimsical Tales is an essential edition to any serious library of the fantastic.