The Ivory and the Horn: A Newford Collection [Hardcover]

Charles de Lint (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1995

A collection of tales focuses on the magical city of Newford and includes ""Our Lady of the Harbour,"" a retelling of ""The Little Mermaid,"" and ""Winter Was Hard,"" which describes androgynous, pixie-like creatures known as gemmin.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This fanciful and moving collection of 15 tales, some loosely related with common characters, probes deeply into the nature of art and artists and the souls of the poor and downtrodden. In the fictional city of Newford, a touch of enchantment can bring surcease from pain and lead to deeper self-knowledge. In "Mr. Truepenny's Book Emporium and Gallery," a lonely young girl called Sophie daydreams about a wonderful shop, only to find, years later, that it has its own reality. Sophie, now an adult and an artist, finds herself marooned in another dream world, a Native American one, in "Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night." And "In Dream Harder, Dream True," an ordinary young man rescues a woman with a broken wing, maybe a fairy, maybe an angel; they become Sophie's parents before the woman disappears. "Bird Bones and Wood Ash" deals with monsters who prey on their children and gives a woman tools to destroy them and save their victims. In "Waifs and Strays," a young woman, little more than a stray herself, who saves abandoned dogs and other neglected creatures, helps the ghost of her first benefactor find peace and move on. De Lint's evocative images, both ordinary and fantastic, jolt the imagination.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

De Lint's latest reprints 14 stories of the gates between Faerie and the imaginary Canadian city of Newford and offers one new piece. Published in 14 different places and read in them one at a time, the stories undoubtedly did not leave quite so overwhelming an impression of literary grunge as they do when read here as a batch. De Lint's writing is as good as ever, and his folkloric scholarship remains outstanding--facts that make it very difficult to argue that this volume that rescues the likes of "Dream Harder, Dream True" and "The Forest Is Crying" from the obscurity of limited editions doesn't deserve its place on many library shelves. Roland Green

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 318 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312855737
• ISBN-13: 978-0312855734
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #192,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charles de Lint and his wife, the artist MaryAnn Harris, live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His evocative novels, including Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, and The Onion Girl, have earned him a devoted following and critical acclaim as a master of contemporary magical fiction

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, September 5, 2000

By 

Rachel Watkins "Rachel Watkins" (Joshua, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ivory and the Horn (Tor Fantasy) (Mass Market Paperback)

I haven't read a lot of DeLint's work, but this and his other two collections of short stories I found to be enchanting. I espically like that you find the same charachters in several of the stories, but from different perspectives so you really get to know the charachters. It's realistic in the way that people interact with thier circles of friends and the magical element is refreshing and makes you open your eyes to the world around you.......you may find yourself looking for the faries in the park without realising it after reading this book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More beautiful tales from the streets of Newford, December 5, 2001

By 

A. KAPLAN "Penelopecat" (Las Vegas, NV United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ivory and the Horn (Tor Fantasy) (Mass Market Paperback)

This second collection of urban fantasy stories from de Lint's fictional city of Newford is almost as pleasurable as the first. As before, each story can be read and enjoyed on its own, but taken as a whole, they build subtly upon each other, and on stories from Dreams Underfoot, to create a whole portrait of a city that is greater than the sum of its parts. De Lint's lyrical, beautiful prose subtly underplays the magic, making it completely believable that there truly is this greater world beyond the one we ordinarily perceive.

The only reason I give this book four stars rather than five is the apparent influence that author/attorney Andrew Vachss has on this collection. Vachss's work crusading against crimes against children is indeed an admirable goal. However, several stories in a row in The Ivory and the Horn pick up on those themes--one even mentioning Vachss as someone one of the characters has had contact with--and it lends that particular section a samey sort of feeling, as opposed to the variety I prefer to find in short story collections. Individually, the stories are just fine. I simply would have prefered to see them presented in a different order, to keep the recurring themes from feeling so obvious.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the best De Lint book, November 14, 2000

By 

"camlyndc" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ivory and the Horn (Tor Fantasy) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is always the book I recommend for those who have never read De Lint's work before. These stories show the magic of everyday life and provide inspiration for surmounting difficulties. De Lint is amazing for his ability to write from a woman's perspective...like one of the previous reviewers, "Bird Bones and Wood Ash" is definitely my favorite story in the collection. Anyone interested in the human condition, whether or not they are fans of fantasy writing, will be drawn in by this collection of stories.