Father Raven and Other Tales

Mark Valentine's insightful new Introduction provides a critical and biographical overview of Coppard the man and his writing, and one can only agree with Valentine's conclusion that 'the time is surely right for new readers to be introduced to his rich, individual, memorable tales.'

This collection of thirty-one highly individual short stories selects the best of A.E. Coppard's fantastical fiction. Regarded by Walter de la Mare, L.P. Hartley and others as one of the finest English short story writers of the twentieth century, Coppard was inspired by traditional British folk tales. He observed: 'I can revel happily with the stuff of the supernatural; it is indeed the material of the folk tale, and that is almost as old as the human race.'

The result is a fascinating selection of stories and fables with an emphasis on the strange and the striking detail, peopled by the outcasts, vagabonds and rural characters with whom the author most sympathised. There are outright fantasies such as 'The King of the World', in which a young Assyrian captain driven into the desert comes across the lost shrine of an ancient god; the out-of-time experiences of 'Adam and Eve and Pinch Me' and 'Gone Away', about a French motoring holiday where time and distance begin to warp; 'The Man from Kilsheelan', described by Mark Valentine, who introduces this volume, as 'a great broiling yarn of murder, visions, lunatics, seafarers, and treasure'; and the 'elliptical, gentle wisdom' of stories such as 'Simple Simon'.

Limited to 300 copies and sold out at the publisher