The Other Nineteenth Century [Paperback]

Avram Davidson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2002

A New Collection of Long Out-of-Print Stories From One of the Greatest Fantasists of the Twentieth Century

Avram Davidson, who died in 1993, was widely regarded as one of the most outstanding authors of short fantasy fiction in our time. This collection comprises his distinctive historical fantasies-tales of strange Mitteleuropas, of magic in Victorian England and on the American frontier. Here are "The Lineaments of Gratified Desire," "Traveller from an Antique Land," and "What Strange Stars and Skies"; here are dragons, cameras, and "The Singular Incident of the Dog on the Beach." Witty, whimsical, dark, and strange, these tales of times and places that almost were will leave even the most jaded readers amazed. No one has ever written like Avram Davidson, before or since.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This wonderfully eclectic and literate collection assembles most of the late author's short SF and fantasy not already reprinted in The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998), edited by Robert Silverberg and Grania Davis. The only well-known piece here is "What Strange Stars and Skies," a reworking of the Lady Bountiful legend with a slight Yiddish accent. The rest is still a virtual cross-section of the work of one of the field's most undeservedly obscure geniuses. "Great Is Diana" brings to life (in several ways) the distinctly un-virginal Diana of the Ephesians. "The Singular Incident of the Dog on the Beach," a brief and delicious Sherlock Holmes pastiche, mentions neither the great detective nor his medical sidekick by name. The Samuel of "One Morning with Samuel, Dorothy, and William" is none other than Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the romantic poet, and we see what really happened when that unexpected visitor from Porlock interrupted the composition of "Kubla Khan." Even when he addresses himself to what we would now call alternate history, as in "O Brave Old World!," the author's historical scholarship and command of the English language rapidly turn it into something rich and strange. One would hesitate to call this book essential for anyone except Davidson's faithful devotees, but for them it is absolutely essential.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This collection of Davidson's short fiction is edited by two of his friends, scholars of his career, who, together with Davidson's longtime editor George Scithers, contribute brief afterwords to the selections. The editorial focus is on stories with historical settings. Some are fantasies; some, alternate histories (e.g., "O Brave Old World," which reworks the American Revolution); some, Sherlock Holmes pastiches (e.g., "The Singular Incident of the Dog on the Beach"); and some, as one could expect from Davidson--try "El Vilvoy de las Islas"--unclassifiable. "Mickelrede" is a posthumous collaboration with Michael Swanwick, and "What Strange Stars and Skies" is one of Davidson's major achievements. Although definitely for Davidson completists--most of his major work was collected in The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998)--there really is no such thing as minor Davidson in the eyes of his devoted followers, who will demand shelf space for this beside its big companion. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (December 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312874928
• ISBN-13: 978-0312874926
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #500,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent strange stories of a 19th century that never was, September 25, 2002

By 

Richard R. Horton (Webster Groves, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Other Nineteenth Century (Hardcover)

The Other Nineteenth Century is the third recent hardcover collection of a selection of Avram Davidson's short fiction, after The Avram Davidson Treasury (1998) and The Investigations of Avram Davidson (1999). Needless to say this is very welcome -- perhaps a reissue of the complete Eszterhazy stories (rumoured to be in the works), and a first collection of the complete Limekiller stories, and maybe one more collection of excellent leftover pieces would be nice. This collection is theoretically of stories set in some version or other of the 19th Century, though a few stories are actually set in the 20th Century, and one or two may be set in the 18th or earlier. But no point quibbling.

The collection is marvelous. It displays Davidson's trademark wonderfully discursive prose, and his autodidact-style erudition, and his deep interest in the nooks and crannies of history. The stories span pretty much Davidson's whole career. Among the best: "What Strange Stars and Skies", about a virtuous do-gooder woman ministering to people in the slums of London who runs afoul of "that unspeakably evil Eurasian, Motilal Smith". "The Lineaments of Gratified Desire" aka "The Price of a Charm", about a man in the early part of this century deciding whether to buy a love charm or a hunting charm -- with significant results. "The Montavarde Camera" is a spooky story about a man with a nagging wife who buys the title camera only to learn its terrible power. The rather late "Twenty-Three", in which we slowly learn the horrible secret of an old family. Another late story, "El Vilvoy de las Islas", about a strange man living on a remote South African island. One of the last (perhaps it was the last) Eszterhazy stories, "The Odd Old Bird", more of a jape than anyhing. "Dragon Skin Drum", a dark story about two American servicemen in China, and Mao's revolution, and the ignorance of Westerners. And so on, and so on ... excellent excellent stuff.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wishing for more, March 7, 2002

By 

Richard J. Arndt (Elko, NV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Other Nineteenth Century (Hardcover)

Davidson's quirky stories are a delight to read and reread. Well worth the investment and a worthy supplement to The Avram Davidson Treasury & The Avram Davidson Investigations. One hopes that the Jake Limekiller stories will be collected soon and that an expanded volume of Adventures In Unhistory is next on the list of publication.

5.0 out of 5 stars A collection of savoury treats, small and spicy, April 17, 2011

By 

Caleb Hanson (Wilmington, MA, US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Other Nineteenth Century (Paperback)

It is true that all of these stories, like most of Davidson's fiction, have a distinctly old-fashioned setting or slant--Davis says in the Afterword, "Avram Davidson was often a time traveler into the past.... The old, the archaic, the antique fascinated him"--but still picky me can't help but note that rather few of the stories are actually set in the 19th century, historical or alternate. Picky me. As to the content of those stories, it's pretty accurately conveyed by the subtitle once it has flipped out: "Truthful Accounts of Living Fossils, Montavarde's Camera, The Irradiodiffusion Machine, and El Vilvoy de Las Islas; with Heinous Crimes, Noble Ladies in Adversity, Brilliant Detections, Imperial Eunuchs, Political Machinations, etc., etc." Slightly different, but especially interesting in its way, is the final story, a 'ghost-novel' sketched in by Michael Swanwick, which demonstrates how "nothing ages so fast as science fiction."

You either like Davidson's style--very chatty, very learned, very eccentric, lots of playing with language and with dialect--or you don't. I do, but even I advise reading these stories one at a time rather than wolfing down too many in a sitting; assume some metaphor about how eating too many savoury treats at once, however small, however spicy, is bad for the digestion.