Foreword

Introduction: An approach to an American fantasy tradition

Part I: Folk, tall, and weird tales: Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving

Feathertop / Nathaniel Hawthorne

Uncle Remus / Joel Chandler Harris

The Saga of Pecos Bill / Edward O'Reilly

Rosy's journey / Louisa May Alcott

The Yellow sign / Robert W. Chambers

The Mysterious shadow over Innsmouth / H.P. Lovecraft

Oh ugly bird! / Manly Wade Wellman

The fool / David Drake

Narrow valley / R.A. Lafferty

Jackalope / Alan Dean Foster

The Lottery / Shirley Jackson

Children of the corn / Stephen King

Buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight / Ursula K. Le Guin.

Part II: Fantastic Americana: The jolly corner / Henry James

A ghost story / Mark Twain

The other lodgers / Ambrose Bierce

Ma'ame Pelagie / Kate Chopin

The devil and Daniel Webster / Stephen Vincent Benet

The valley was still / Manly Wade Wellman

The howling man / Charles Beaumont

Twenty-three / Avram Davidson

We are the dead / Henry Kuttner

Where the summer ends / Karl Edward Wagner

Shoeless Joe Jackson comes to Iowa / W.P. Kinsella

Hatrack River / Orson Scott Card

The hero of the night / Bradley Denton

The whimper of whipped dogs / Harlan Ellison.

Part III: Lands of enchantment and everyday life: The griffin and the minor canon / Frank Stockton

The enchanted buffalo / L. Frank Baum

The yellow wall-paper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The moving finger / Edith Wharton

Slow sculpture / Theodore Sturgeon

The coin collector / Jack Finney

Prey / Richard Matheson

The Geezenstacks / Fredric Brown

Paladin of the lost hour / Harlan Ellison

The Black ferris / Ray Bradbury

Bed & breakfast / Gene Wolfe

Dead run / Greg Bear

Her pilgrim soul / Alan Brennert

Mrs. Todd's shortcut / Stephen King

Among the handlers / Michael Bishop

Select critical bibliography.