Tales of Pain and Wonder (First Edition)

Published in 2000

Now available, the highly anticipated first short story collection by the award-winning author of Silk, Caitlí­n R. Kiernan. Tales of Pain and Wonder are twenty one short stories, a number written expressly for this Gauntlet signed limited edition.

Through the unflinching lens of her exquisite prose, in Tales of Pain and Wonder Kiernan explores a surreal world where the fantastic and the mundane are never separated by more than the insubstantial thickness of a shadow. From the murderous back streets of New Orleans to an abandoned shipyard on the Hudson River, from sun-weary Los Angeles to a maze of dank and forgotten tunnels beneath Manhattan, these stories present a landscape at once alien and undeniably familiar.

Richard Kirk furnishes cover and interior art, Douglas E. Winter provides an introduction and Peter Straub an afterword. The book is signed by all four.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Pain, Wonder, and Caitlin R. Kiernan (Douglas E. Winter)
• "Anamorphosis"
• "To This Water (Johnstown, Pennsylvania 1889)"
• "Bela's Plot"
• "Tears Seven Times Salt"
• "Superheroes"
• "Glass Coffin"
• "Breakfast in the House of the Rising Sun"
• "Estate"
• "The Last Child or Lir"
• "A Story for Edward Gorey"
• "Paedomorphosis"
• "Salammbô"
• "Postcards from the King of Tides"
• "Rats Live on No Evil Star"
• "Salmagundi"
• "In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888)"
• "The Long Hall on the Top Floor"
• "San Andreas"
• "Angels You Can See Through" †
• "Mercury" ‡
• "Lafayette"
• "...Between the Gargoyle Trees"
• "Salammbô Redux" ‡
• Epilogue: "Zelda Fitzgerald in Ballet Attire"
• Afterword (Peter Straub)

Lettered: Limited to 52 signed, lettered and traycased copies, includes chapbook Study for "Estate" signed by Kiernan, but does contain a different letter than that of the book?