Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens: Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman (Volume 5) (Hardcover)

by Manly Wade Wellman (Author) "There are moments in literature - very rare and very marvelous - when a writer creates a unique character..." (more)
Key Phrases: little black train, black fiddle, dumb supper, Reed Barnitt, Donie Carawan, Ugly Bird (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens is the 5th and final volume of Night Shade Books’ five volume "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman." This volume contains all of the John the Balladeer stories (sometimes better known as Silver John), Manly's most famous character.

Introduction by Karl Edward Wagner
O Ugly Bird!
The Desrick on Yandro
Vandy, Vandy
One Other
Call Me From the Valley
The Little Black Train
Shiver in the Pines
Walk Like A Mountain
On the Hills and Everywhere
Old Devlins Was A-Waiting
Nine Yards of Other Cloth
Wonder As I Wander
Farther Down the Trail
Trill Coster’s Burden
The Spring
Owls Hoot in the Daytime
Can These Bones Live?
Nobody Ever Goes There
Where Did She Wander?
Afterword by Gerald W. Page

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books; First Edition edition (March 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892389231
• ISBN-13: 978-1892389237
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #247,430 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John the Balladeer, May 12, 2003

By	James M. Holtzclaw II (Rock Hill, SC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An extraordinary collection of stories that is well worth reading. If you can find the long out of print paperback collection titled John the Balladeer, you'll find the same tales.

Each one is a tale where right and justice prevail or perhaps, more accurately, where evil rebounds upon the practioner thereof. "O Ugly Bird!" is perhaps the most famous and is certainly a wonderful introduction to Silver John. "Vandy,Vandy" is among my favorites (yes, children, US quarters were made of silver at one time). "On the Hills and Everywhere" is a grand and too long ignored Christmas story.

While somewhat dated, the hero of one story is a young college student just back from the Korean war, they're are all entertaining "backwoods yarns".

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Appalachian Gothic Gold, September 7, 2004

By	Doctor Mabuse "Let me introduce myself. My n... (Seattle, Washington USA) - See all my reviews

Volume Five of editor John Pelen's THE SELECTED STORIES OF MANLY WADE WELLMAN rounds off the permanent edition of Wellman's short supernatural fiction with a complete collection of the popular Silver John the Balladeer tales originally published (mostly) in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION. These deliciously spooky and atmospheric mood pieces combine the rich flavor of authentic regional folklore with Wellman's sterling imagination and storytelling gifts.

John Pelen is owed a debt of gratitude for this five-volume collection which establishes Wellman, who was one of the best of the original WEIRD TALES writers, in the ranks of such luminaries as Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard and H. P. Lovecraft.

Wellman's several Silver John novels also deserve to be collected in such attractive form.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars John's back, and he's still singing, March 24, 2004

By	Paula Berman (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This 5th volume of the series has the same contents as the paperback version of John the Balladeer, even including the introduction, so unlike the first four volumes it won't be new material to most of Wellman's fans. It is nice to see John's stories in a binding befitting their quality, though. (One tiny niggle: I sort of wish they'd used silver instead of gilt on the cover of this one.) The series in general is well done, nicely bound, and brings together a lot of material that is both worth reading and otherwise difficult to find.