Compulsory Games

by Robert Aickman

Genres: Occult & Supernatural; Short Stories; Gothic

Synopsis

The best and most interesting stories by Robert Aickman, a master of the supernatural tale, the uncanny, and the truly weird.

Robert Aickman’s self-described “strange stories” are confoundingly and uniquely his own. These superbly written tales terrify not with standard thrills and gore but through a radical overturning of the laws of nature and everyday life. His territory of the strange, of the “void behind the face of order,” is a surreal region that grotesquely mimics the quotidian: Is that river the Thames, or is it even a river? What does it mean when a prospective lover removes one dress, and then another—and then another? Does a herd of cows in a peaceful churchyard contain the souls of jilted women preparing to trample a cruel lover to death? Published for the first time under one cover, the stories in this collection offer an unequaled introduction to a profoundly original modern master of the uncanny.

Release date: May 8, 2018

Publisher: NYRB Classics

Print pages: 368