by Peter Straub
FLOATING DRAGON
SHADOWLAND
GHOST STORY
IF YOU COULD SEE ME NOW
JULIA
UNDER VENUS
MARRIAGES
BLACK HOUSE (with Stephen King)
POETRY
OPEN AIR
LEESON PARK & BELSIZE SQUARE
COLLECTIONS
WILD ANIMALS
HOUSES WITHOUT DOORS
PETER STRAUB’S GHOSTS (editor)
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These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Fawcett Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2000 by Peter Straub
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Georges Borchardt, Inc., for permission to reprint six lines from “Down by the Station, Early in the Morning,” from A Wave, by John Ashbery (New York: Viking, 1984). Copyright © 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 by John Ashbery. Reprinted by permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc., for the author.
All of the pieces in this work have been previously published: “Ashputtle” was originally published in Black Thorn, White Rose, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (William Morrow, 1994); “Isn’t It Romantic?” was originally published in Murder on the Run, by the Adams Round Table (Berkley, 1998); “The Ghost Village” was originally published in The Mists from Beyond, edited by Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and Martin H. Greenberg (ROC, 1993); “Porkpie Hat” was originally published in Murder for Halloween, edited by Michele Slung and Roland Hartman (Mysterious Press, 1994); “Bunny Is Good Bread” was originally published, under the title “Fee,” in Borderlands 4, edited by Elizabeth E. Monteleone and Thomas F. Monteleone (Borderlands Press, 1994); “Hunger, an Introduction” was originally published in Ghosts, edited by Peter Straub (Borderlands Press, 1995); and “Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff” was originally published in Murder for Revenge, edited by Otto Penzler (Delacorte Press, 1998).
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This edition published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.
First Fawcett Edition: September 2001
eISBN: 978-0-375-50576-8
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