Customer Reviews

The Collected Tales of A. E. Coppard (Supernatural and Occult Fiction)

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A "Collected Stories" is not a collection of all of an author's stories -- it's usually supposed to be a comprehensive collection of all the major stories thought to be worthy of preservation. Despite the title, this book is far from a comprehensive edition of A. E. Coppard's best short stories. I own the Knopf edition, which came out back in the 1950s, and it contains 38 stories selected from a corpus of over 200.

Coppard's work, written in a distinctive, peculiarly English poetic style is shown to its best advantage within the relatively small compass of this book. The selection as such has no real clunkers, and much of Coppard's most interesting work is included. With stories like "The Higgler," "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me," and "Dusky Ruth," we have him at his best and most characteristic. Coppard's slight thematic obsession with private incomes (see Frank O'Connor's essay in _The Lonely Voice_ on this subject) and the "mysterious" nature of women are features of several of these stories, but not in a bad or distracting way.

Of course, some of the omissions are peculiar. In particular, I'd single out the absence of the story "Black Dog," one of Coppard's best novella-length works. I wish it had been included, because its absence makes the book feel incomplete somehow.

Despite such small defects, the volume serves as a good sampler of Coppard's work, and is highly recommended, if the book can be located. Coppard seems unjustly neglected these days, so it might be difficult if one plans to wait for a new edition of his work. Personally, I'd like to see a _Complete Stories_, which I would buy in a heartbeat. Such an occurrance seems of low probability these days.

Readers who like these stories might give the stories of Walter de la Mare, Frank O'Connor, and D.H Lawrence a try (not Lawrence's novels, which are very different).