Favourite Children's Authors: William Mayne

William Mayne: Low Tide (1993)

William Mayne's Low Tide interested me a lot when I first read it in the 1990s. It's set in New Zealand - which always tends to pique the interest of locals such as myself, and while I'm not sure that he does a great job of reproducing our manners and mores, the story itself is an arresting one. This is how Google Books describes it:

Set in New Zealand at the turn of the century, this exhilarating story of survival and adventure finds Charlie Snelling, his sister, and his Māori best friend swept up in a giant green tidal wave that carries them up high in the mountains to the old wild man called Koroua. What must they do to survive and find the way home?

Spoiler alert: They do eventually make their way down to the shore, only to find their town completely deserted and filled with sand and silt. But there's something just a little bit ... off about it. It looks similar, but not exactly the same.

To make a long story short, it turns out that there are two virtually identical towns set on different inlets. The one they live in was built after the other one was abandoned for various safety reasons. The new town was constructed on precisely the same model as the old one, though, which explains that strange moment of déjà vu when they stumbled into the latter by mistake, and found all their friends gone and the buildings half-buried by the tsunami.

It's a typically tricksy and laconically narrated William Mayne story: quite demanding even for its intended audience of older children, but also satisfactory in that he doesn't talk down to his readers.

William Mayne (1928-2010)

He looks harmless enough in the picture above, doesn't he? Almost like an old basset hound, with those two white sidelocks for ears. However:

In 2004, Mayne was charged with eleven counts of indecent assaults of "young girl fans" aged between eight and sixteen. At trial one victim gave evidence of events some forty years in the past. According to The Guardian, the prosecutor said Mayne had "treated young visitors as adults". He was described in the courtroom as "the greatest living writer of children's books in English". Mayne had pleaded guilty to the charges, but his solicitor said he had done so while under huge stress and would try to clear his name. On conviction, Mayne was imprisoned for two and a half years and was placed on the sex offenders register for life. According to The Guardian, "Mayne's books were largely deliberately removed from shelves from 2004 onwards", as a result of his conviction.

- Wikipedia: William Mayne

It's rather like Low Tide: two towns, side by side on almost identical inlets, one full of bustle and life, the other completely deserted and left to the mercy of wind and weather. The first is his stellar reputation before the scandal; the second his status as a cancelled individual afterwards.

Trying to reread William Mayne now forces you to shift from that lively village of swift empathetic insights and strange, sometimes supernatural, fun, to the other town: the one where you have to hang your head in shame and watch armfuls of books being plucked from the shelves before being sent off to the nearest landfill for composting.

As for Mayne himself, he was "found dead at his home in Thornton Rust, North Yorkshire, on the morning of 24 March 2010." There were, we're informed, no suspicious circumstances; in other words, no reason to suspect suicide or foul play.

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William Mayne: All the King's Men (1982)

I think that the first book I ever read by William Mayne was All the King's Men. It's a very odd book indeed, a collection of three longish short stories. The first, title story concerns the doings of a group of dwarfs who feel more and more oppressed by the lack of respect they're shown at court, despite being known as the "King's Men." When they're shifted to a nearby hunting lodge, they're not even fed and housed properly, but are forced to fend for themselves.

Unlike the hero of Edgar Allan Poe's grand guignol classic "Hop-Frog," Mayne's protagonists are eventually helped out by the kindly Archbishop, who makes time to listen to their grievances and share them with the king.

The mockery and neglect they suffer is certainly very real, but there seems some slight prospect of betterment by the end of the story. The story gripped me at the time because of Mayne's obvious empathy with his characters and sympathy for their dilemma. Like Jack London's equally moving "Told in the Drooling Ward," it's never really left my mind since.

It convinced me, among other things, that Mayne was a man of strange understandings and considerable delicacy of mind: another reason that the news of his conviction for indecent assault hit me and his other readers so hard.

About a year ago I wrote a piece, "Must We Burn Alice Munro?", about this same dilemma of whether or not we can continue in good conscience to read authors who've been outed in such a way. Can I, for instance, keep on enjoying Neil Gaiman's work after all the allegations of sexual misconduct which have surfaced recently?

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Neil Gaiman: The Sandman (2025)

Clearly no simple, off-the-cuff answer to so loaded a question can be expected to apply to every situation. I was forced instead to conclude my piece with a series of further questions:

Did Dickens lose any readers over the revelation of his cruel, public rejection of his wife in order to pursue an affair with the young actress Nelly Ternan? Nelly, it seems, had little choice in the matter - neither did Mrs. Dickens. His saccharine morality showed its pinchbeck quality once and for all in his later life. And yet we continue to pore over the complexities of his last fictions, full of young heroines sacrificing themselves for self-pitying older men.

In other words, while "there may be a few temporary blips in sales ... more readers are drawn to turbulent, demon-ridden souls such as Dostoyevsky and Dickens than they are to the sanity and order of better-balanced authors."

Maybe it shouldn't be so - but it is. Whatever (for instance) your opinion of J. K. Rowling's views on tne inviolability of gender roles, Harry Potter remains a fixture on our shelves and our streaming services.

Neil Gaiman (2013)

The interesting thing about Gaiman, in particular, is that these details about his private life have given me a number of new insights into his work. He sounds like a pretty sick bastard to me - in particular, if the accusations about his conduct with a young New Zealand nanny are accurate: "Call me Master" indeed! But then so is Dream, the protagonist of his Sandman stories, both as he appears in the the late 80s / early 90s comics and in the more recent 2022-25 TV series.

Dream (or Morpheus, as I suppose we should call him) sends a woman who rejects him to hell for ten thousand years as revenge for her presumption. Another of his ex-lovers, the muse Calliope, is repeatedly raped by a young writer in order to help him gain inspiration. She remarks, when Dream eventually decides to save her from this fate, that he must have changed over the past century or so. The older version would have refused to help her on principle.

The more closely you look, the more obvious it is that Gaiman has been half-condemning, half-defending his own sexual peccadilloes throughout his whole career. The disguise, now, seems as paper-thin as Dickens' series of late novels defending the idea of young women becoming enamoured of older men.

Whether or not Gaiman manages to extricate himself from his present difficulties concerns only him and his publicist, I would say. But, if anything, his work has become more interesting now it's revealed to have been so profoundly personal all along. I find I can continue to read it - mainly because Gaiman the writer is superior to Gaiman the man. The ugly face of libertinism, its callous cruelty, is shown in his fiction - not, I think, because Gaiman is a lying hypocrite, but because the logic of the story and the reality of his characters forces him to do so.

Neil Gaiman: A Game of You (1991)

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William Mayne: A Game of Dark (1971)

There's an interesting attempt to summarise the case against Mayne in John Clute's Encyclopedia of SF:

Soon after [the success of his "pared to the bone and fantasticated" later work], Mayne's life and work were tragically darkened – a tragedy first and foremost for his victims – when he was charged with child abuse in 2004 and imprisoned for two and one half years. His oeuvre went out of print, his books were removed from libraries, which was expectable; but his name was also conspicuously cancelled from the influential 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up (2009) edited by Julia Ecclestone, an erasure with grave implications. His death may eventually have the effect of allowing his books to live again.

As usual with this most fascinatingly layered of reference works, there's a lot going on in this short paragraph. There's a (parenthetical) acknowledgment that Mayne's abuse was "a tragedy first and foremost for his victims," but the burden of the piece seems, nevertheless, to be on the cost to him and his oeuvre. That last sentence sounds far more heartfelt: "His death may eventually have the effect of allowing his books to live again."

There's also a sideswipe at Julia "Ecclestone" (a misprint for Eccleshare), and her decision to "cancel" Mayne so conspicuously "from the influential 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up (2009)", which the authors of the entry describe as "an erasure with grave implications."

Interestingly enough, this same Julia Eccleshare wrote the Guardian obituary for Mayne roughly a year after the publication of 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. Like most such long and well-considered assessments, it shows signs of having been written long before the eruption of the scandal, then recast in a hurry with a eye to those details:

William Mayne, who has died aged 82, was one of the most highly regarded writers of the postwar "golden age" of children's literature. His output was huge – well over 100 titles, encompassing novels and latterly picture books, rich in a sense of place and feel for the magical, and beautifully written. He wrote several books a year in a career that spanned more than half a century and won him the Carnegie medal and the Guardian children's fiction prize.

That first paragraph could have been written at any time; the next one, however, shows signs of having been hastily supplemented with new details to undermine any notion of a Mayne "comeback":

Although never widely popular and sometimes thought of as inaccessible for his young readers, his distinctive, allusive and spare writing had considerable influence and, despite being sometimes out of fashion, his books were often thought due for a comeback. That was never to happen. Instead, Mayne's books were largely deliberately removed from shelves from 2004 onwards following his conviction and prison sentence for indecent assault on children.

William Mayne: A Swarm in May (1955)

The rest of the obituary runs through his career more or less chronologically, from his early choir school stories, "based on his own experiences as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral from 1937 until 1942, the only part of his education he valued," to the more fantastic and supernatural themes he explored from the mid-1960s onwards.

William Mayne: Chorister's Cake (1956)

Numerous encomia are quoted along the way:

A Swarm in May was hailed as a "minor masterpiece ... one of the 20th-century's best children's books" by Frank Eyre in British Children's Books in the Twentieth Century (1971).
... Mayne also received great praise for Choristers' Cake. A review in the Times Literary Supplement highlighted the already clearly recognisable qualities of Mayne's writing while also pointing out the difficulties:

Its virtuosity and verbal richness, as well as the undoubted oddness of many of its characters, put it beyond the range of the average reader. But for the child who can meet its demands it will be a deep and memorable experience. In insight, in gaiety, in exuberance of idea and language, it is in a class apart. Mr Mayne is certainly the most interesting, as the most unpredictable, figure in children's books today.

William Mayne: Cathedral Wednesday (1960)

He's also described as "a master – the master in contemporary English writing for children – of setting". At length, though, the scandal must be faced again:

In 2004, Mayne was convicted of 11 charges of sexual abuse with young girls and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and placed on the sex offenders' register for life. It was a death knell for his books, but it did not stop Mayne from writing and he was still doing so at the time of his death. Print on demand had recently helped Mayne, with reprints of some of his titles due to become available on Faber Finds.

How different is the tone of that "It was a death knell for his books" from the SF Encyclopedia's "His death may eventually have the effect of allowing his books to live again" ...

Eccleshare's obituary concludes as follows:

The son of a doctor, Mayne was born in Hull and lived in the Yorkshire Dales for most of his life. He was famously reclusive. When asked if he would be interviewed for a children's books magazine, Mayne replied: "I am sure this sort of thing never works. I shall go nowhere to accomplish it and I'm sure others would find it unrewarding to come here. I have not sensed the lack of my not appearing in your neologies ... but if you find it necessary to molest my ancient solitary peace for the sake of your new, maddening piece, I am prepared to tolerate for a short time some person guaranteed not to be strident."

While the obituary as a whole was presumably composed for The Guardian's file of pre-cooked celebrity obituaries sometime before 2004, the choice of this particular quotation for its last paragraph does sound a bit pointed: the term "molest", in particular, seems a strange one for Mayne to have chosen, and given that it was a series of young fans and visitors "guaranteed not to be strident" he was eventually convicted of abusing, the irony is probably intentional.

Clearly the omission of Mayne from Julia Eccleshare's 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up wasn't accidental.

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William Mayne: Earthfasts (1966)

Which leaves us where, exactly? This is certainly not the piece I would like to write about William Mayne, teasing out the subtleties and constant spirit of experiment to be found in his fiction, old and new. As Julia Eccleshare puts it:

in general in Mayne's books, the characters are quiet and gentle. There are no heroics. If there is power, it usually lies within the land and its past; it can temporarily be used by humans passing through. This absence of heroes and the lack of major dramatic focus, combined with increasing obliqueness, caused Mayne to become less popular with children by the mid-1960s as his slower-paced stories failed to chime with the expectations of his readers. But, even before then, Mayne was always admired more by adults than children.

Different children have different expectations. I, too, found Mayne's books and elliptical dialogue difficult to follow at times, but for me that was a refreshing change from the "chosen one" action-hero fantasies which were the norm even then.

Nor did Mayne seem to have a distinct ideological axe to grind:

A recurrent theme of Mayne's stories was how children could see and accept magic and magical explanations, while the adults around them create rational stories to explain the same outcome. There was no sentimentality around Mayne's sense of children's belief. Instead he simply posited that children are as at home with unreality as reality, while adults take a different view. Mayne somehow seemed able to take both views himself, perhaps because he described his writing by saying: "All I am doing is looking at things now and showing them to myself when young."

He may have been - was, in fact - a flawed, childish man, but that is one of the reasons he was able to write so well from a child's perspective, without sentimentality, as Eccleshare admits above.

That trait of being able to take two views at once is crucial to understanding and appreciating his books. They're not action-packed - the land is more of an actor than the characters most of the time, as Eccleshare reminds us.

Like her, I doubt that there'll ever be a full-fledged Mayne revival. He never really was a bestseller, and his books were "always admired more by adults than children." I gather, though, that he's already finding his way back to a quiet vogue as a concocter of subtle and psychologically acute supernatural stories.

If the Weird Tales community can forgive H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard their multiple personal and stylistic transgressions, I can't foresee William Mayne having too much trouble.

BBC: Earthfasts (1994)

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William Mayne

William James Carter Mayne
(1928-2010)

Novels:


1. Follow the Footprints (1953)
   • Follow the Footprints. Illustrated by Shirley Hughes. 1953. Oxford Children’s Library. London: Oxford University Press, 1958.
2. The World Upside Down (1954)
   • The World Upside Down. Illustrated by Shirley Hughes. London: Geoffrey Cumberlege / Oxford University Press, 1954.
3. Choir School Series (1955-1963)
   1. A Swarm in May (1955)
      • A Swarm in May. Illustrated by C. Walter Hodges. 1955. Oxford Children’s Library. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
   2. Choristers' Cake (1956)
      • Chorister’s Cake. Illustrated by C. Walter Hodges. 1956. London: Oxford University Press, 1960.
   3. Cathedral Wednesday (1960)
      • Cathedral Wednesday. 1960. Leicester: Brockhampton Press, 1972.
   4. Words and Music (1963)
4. The Member for the Marsh (1956)
   • The Member for the Marsh. Illustrated by Lynton Lamb. 1956. London: The Children’s Book Club, 1956.
5. The Blue Boat (1957)
6. A Grass Rope (1957)
7. Underground Alley (1958)
8. [as 'Dynely James'] The Gobbling Billy (1959)
   • [with Dick Caesar] The Gobbling Billy. 1959. Knight Books. Leicester: Brockhampton, 1969.
9. The Rolling Season (1960)
10. The Changeling (1961)
11. The Glass Ball. Illustrated by Janet Duchesne (1961)
12. The Twelve Dancers (1962)
    • The Twelve Dancers. Illustrated by Lynton Lamb. 1962. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.
13. Sand (1962)
    • Sand. Illustrated by Margery Gill. 1964. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967.
14. Plot Night (1963)
15. The Changeling (1963)
16. A Parcel of Trees (1963)
    • A Parcel of Trees. Illustrated by Margery Gill. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.
17. Underground Alley (1963)
18. Whistling Rufus (1964)
19. No More School (1965)
    • No More School. Illustrated by Peter Warner. 1965. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.
20. Pig in the Middle (1965)
21. Earthfasts Series (1966-2000)
    1. Earthfasts (1966)
       • Earthfasts. 1966. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.
    2. Cradlefasts (1995)
    3. Candlefasts (2000)
       • Candlefasts. London: Hodder Children’s Books, 2000.
22. The Battlefield (1967)
    • The Battlefield. Illustrated by Mary Russon. 1967. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.
23. The Old Zion (1967)
24. Over the Hills and Far Away [aka 'The Hill Road']. Illustrated by Krystyna Turska (1968)
25. The House on Fairmount (1968)
26. The Hill Road (1969)
27. Ravensgill (1970)
    • Ravensgill. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1970.
28. A Game of Dark (1971)
    • A Game of Dark. 1971. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.
29. Royal Harry (1971)
30. The Incline (1972)
31. [as 'Martin Cobalt'] The Swallows [aka 'The Pool of Swallows'] (1972)
32. Skiffy Series (1972-1982)
    1. Skiffy (1972)
       • Skiffy. Illustrated by Nicholas Fisk. 1972. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980.
    2. Skiffy and the Twin Planets (1982)
33. The Jersey Shore (1973)
34. A Year and a Day. Illustrated by Krystyna Turska (1976)
35. It (1977)
    • It. 1977. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980.
36. Max's Dream. Illustrated by Laszlo Acs (1977)
37. While the Bells Ring. Illustrated by Janet Rawlins (1979)
38. The Patchwork Cat. Illustrated by Nicola Bayley (1981)
39. Winter Quarters (1982)
    • Winter Quarters. Illustrated by Margery Gill. 1982. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984.
40. Salt River Times. Illustrated by Elizabeth Honey (1982)
    • Salt River Times. Illustrated by Elizabeth Honey. 1980. Puffin Books. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.
41. The Mouldy. Illustrated by Nicola Bayley (1983)
42. Hob Series (1984-1997)
    1. The Blue Book of Hob Stories. Illustrated by Patrick Benson (1984)
    2. The Green Book of Hob Stories. Illustrated by Patrick Benson (1984)
    3. The Red Book of Hob Stories. Illustrated by Patrick Benson (1984)
    4. The Yellow Book of Hob Stories. Illustrated by Patrick Benson (1984)
    5. The Book of Hob Stories. [Omnibus]. Illustrated by Patrick Benson (1991)
    6. Hob and the Goblins. Illustrated by Norman Messenger (1993)
    7. Hob and the Peddler. Illustrated by Norman Messenger (1997)
43. Drift (1985)
44. Gideon Ahoy! (1987)
    • Gideon Ahoy! Illustrated by Chris Molan. 1987. Plus Fiction. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1989.
45. Kelpie (1987)
    • Kelpie. London: Jonathan Cape, 1987.
46. Tiger’s Railway (1987)
    • Tiger’s Railway. Illustrated by Juan Wijngaard. London: Walker Books, 1987.
47. Antar and the Eagles (1989)
    • Antar and the Eagles. London: Walker Books, 1989.
48. The Farm that Ran out of Names (1990)
    • The Farm that Ran out of Names. 1990. A Red Fox Book. London: Random Century Children’s Books, 1991.
49. The Men of the House. Illustrated by Michaela Stewart (1990)
50. Low Tide (1992)
    • Low Tide. 1992. A Red Fox Book. London: Random Century Children’s Books, 1993.
51. Oh Grandmama. Illustrated by Maureen Bradley (1993)
52. Cuddy (1994)
53. Bells on her Toes. Illustrated by Maureen Bradley (1994)
54. Fairy Tales of London Town Series (1995-1996)
    1. The Fairy Tales of London Town: Upon Paul's Steeple. Illustrated by Peter Melnyczuk (1995)
    2. The Fairy Tales of London Town: See-Saw Sacradown. Illustrated by Peter Melnyczuk (1996)
55. Lady Muck. Illustrated by Jonathan Heale (1997)
56. Midnight Fair (1997)
57. Captain Ming and the Mermaid (1999)
58. Imogen and the Ark (1999)
59. The Worm in the Well (2002)
    • The Worm in the Well. Hodder Silver Series. London: Hodder Children’s Books, 2002.
60. The Animal Garden (2003)
61. Emily Goes To Market. Illustrated by Sophy Williams (2004)
62. Jubilee's Pups (2004)
63. Every Dog (2009)

Short Stories:


64. All the King's Men (1982)
    1. All the King's Men
    2. Boy to Island
    3. Stony Ray
    • All the King’s Men. London: Jonathan Cape, 1982.
65. A Small Pudding for Wee Gowry; and Other Stories of Underground Creatures. Illustrated by Martin Cottam (1983)
66. The Blemyah Stories. Illustrated by Juan Wijngaard (1987)
67. The Second Hand Horse (1990)
    • The Second Hand Horse and Other Stories. 1990. Mammoth. London: Mandarin Books, 1992.
68. The Fox Gate and Other Stories. Illustrated by William Geldart (1996)

Edited:


69. Book of Kings (1964)
    • [with Eleanor Farjeon] The Hamish Hamilton Book of Kings. Illustrated by Victor Ambrus. London: Hamish Hamilton Children's Books Ltd., 1964.
70. Book of Queens (1965)
    • [with Eleanor Farjeon] The Hamish Hamilton Book of Queens. Illustrated by Victor Ambrus. London: Hamish Hamilton Children's Books Ltd., 1965.
71. Book of Heroes (1967)
    • A Book of Heroes. Illustrated by Krystyna Turska. 1967. Puffin Books, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.
72. Book of Giants (1968)
    • A Book of Giants. Illustrated by Raymond Briggs. 1968. Puffin Books, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.

William Mayne (16 March 1928 - 24 March 2010)

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Sandmania

The Sandman (Netflix, 2022- )

It's actually quite hard for me to remember a time before I knew Sandman. The graphic novel, that is, not the TV series. That's pretty new to all of us, I suppose.

Neil Gaiman: World's End (1994)

And yet, I do dimly recall getting out a single volume of The Sandman Library out from the Auckland Central Library. Sometime in the late 1990s, it must have been. The book in question was No. 8: World’s End, which was, in retrospect, not a bad introduction to strange and intricate world of Neil Gaiman's comic.

Neil Gaiman: World's End (1994)

After that I read odd volumes as they came to hand - mostly completely out of sequence, unfortunately - until I had more or less grasped the whole thing. At which point I realised that I really had to own it all myself, and started buying the ones available in Borders, then online, until I had a complete set and could read the whole work from start to finish.

According to Wikipedia, The original series ran for 75 separate issues, each with a cover by Dave McKean, from January 1989 to March 1996. When collected subsequently for book publication, it was divided into the following volumes:

1. Preludes and Nocturnes, illustrated by Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg & Malcolm Jones III, coloured by Robbie Busch, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #1–8 (1988–1989)
2. The Doll's House, illustrated by Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Chris Bachalo, Michael Zulli & Steve Parkhouse, coloured by Robbie Busch, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #9–16 (1989–1990)
3. Dream Country, illustrated by Kelley Jones, Charles Vess, Colleen Doran & Malcolm Jones III, coloured by Robbie Busch & Steve Oliff, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #17–20 (1990)
4. Season of Mists, illustrated by Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Matt Wagner, Dick Giordano, George Pratt & P. Craig Russell, coloured by Steve Oliff & Daniel Vozzo, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #21–28 (1990–1991)
5. A Game of You, illustrated by Shawn McManus, Colleen Doran, Bryan Talbot, George Pratt, Stan Woch & Dick Giordano, coloured by Daniel Vozzo, and lettered by Todd Klein collects The Sandman #32–37, 1991–1992)
6. Fables and Reflections, illustrated by Bryan Talbot, Stan Woch, P. Craig Russell, Shawn McManus, John Watkiss, Jill Thompson, Duncan Eagleson, Kent Williams, Mark Buckingham, Vince Locke & Dick Giordano, coloured by Daniel Vozzo & Lovern Kindzierski/Digital Chameleon, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #29–31, 38–40, 50; The Sandman Special #1; and Vertigo Preview No. 1 (1991–1993)
7. Brief Lives, illustrated by Vince Locke, Dick Giordano & Jill Thompson, coloured by Daniel Vozzo, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #41–49 (1992–1993)
8. Worlds' End, illustrated by Michael Allred, Gary Amaro, Mark Buckingham, Dick Giordano, Tony Harris, Steve Leialoha, Vince Locke, Shea Anton Pensa, Alec Stevens, Bryan Talbot, John Watkiss & Michael Zulli, coloured by Danny Vozzo, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #51–56 (1993)
9. The Kindly Ones, illustrated by Marc Hempel, Richard Case, D'Israeli, Teddy Kristiansen, Glyn Dillon, Charles Vess, Dean Ormston & Kevin Nowlan, coloured by Daniel Vozzo, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #57–69 and Vertigo Jam No. 1 (1993–1995)
10. The Wake, illustrated by Michael Zulli, Jon J. Muth & Charles Vess, coloured by Daniel Vozzo & Jon J. Muth, and lettered by Todd Klein, collects The Sandman #70–75 (1995–1996)

If you're suprised to see quite so much detail here about who illustrated, coloured, and lettered each issue, it's important to emphasise that the creation of American mass-market comics depends on taking a team approach. There's no other way to guarantee enough product on the newstands every month.

Simply put, the writer supplies a blow-by-blow account of what they have in mind (there are sample scripts in some of the Sandman reprints, if you're curious to see what these look like). The penciller does a rough sketch of each panel and page. The inker then draws in a final version of these images (with revisions, if necessary). The colours are then added by a further artist, after which the dialogue and captions are lettered into each speech balloon and inset panel.

This sounds like - and, I gather, is - quite a laborious process. Individual comics auteurs tend to take care of most or all of these levels of production all by themselves. But that's one reason why lone wolf comics take such an inordinate amount of time to create.

The work involved is staggering, and when one adds the information - supplied by Gaiman himself - that each page of his comics requires about four pages of description, the true scale of such enterprises as The Sandman begins to come into focus: 3,000-odd pages of comic = roughly 12,000 pages of writing.

What, then, of the TV series, revealed to us finally after 30 years in development limbo? Well, fans will immediately note some changes and elisions: John Constantine has been replaced by his ancestor Lady Johanna Constantine, and a number of characters (including Death) have changed their ethnicity. All in all, though, such shifts are less notable than the number of things which have remained intact.

And one can already detect, at the end of the first series (roughly covering the first two volumes of the comic) the plotlines lining up for more momentous developments in Morpheus's journey. Overall, I'd say I liked it a lot. It's rather schmaltzy at times, but then so is the comic. It's also gruesome - which I liked less - but then that's true to the spirit of the original, too.

One thing I particularly appreciated was how slow-moving most of the episodes were. There was none of that break-neck, frenetic pace which such shows as Dr Who have increasingly adopted as their trademark technique for engaging with 'youth'. Morpheus, by contrast, speaks slowly and deliberately and has long, detailed conversations with his collaborators (and victims) before making each of his moves on the celestial chessboard.

It was, in other words, written for people with a brain - whether they happened to be young or old - rather than the guppy attention-spanned audiences generally courted by streaming providers. The special effects are rich and (for the most part) well realised, and the episodes nicely balanced between atmosphere and action.

If the overall intention was to hook us on yet another epic fantasy serial like Game of Thrones, with its year-long waits between series, I'm afraid that they've been only too successful. I, for one, will be waiting impatiently to see where they go next with it. Bronwyn is so anxious to know what happens next that she may have to resort to reading the comics!

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Neil Gaiman et al. The Sandman: Overture (2013)

There's a large number of spin-offs, sequels and part-sequels to The Sandman, some written by Gaiman himself and some by other people. Few of them could be said to be really essential reading, but there are some exceptions.

The most extended example, Mike Carey's Lucifer - which I suspect will survive its dreadful TV adaptation (even worse than the one of Gaiman's novel American Gods, which is saying something) - is, imho, a bona fide masterpiece which challenges comparison even with its original:

Mike Carey: Lucifer (1999-2007)

• Lucifer 1: Devil in the Gateway. The Sandman Presents – Lucifer 1-3: 1999 & Lucifer 1-4: 2000. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2001.
• Lucifer 2: Children and Monsters. Lucifer 5-13: 2000. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2001.
• Lucifer 3: A Dalliance with the Damned. Lucifer 14-20: 2001. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2002.
• Lucifer 4: The Divine Comedy. Lucifer 21-28: 2002. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2003.
• Lucifer 5: Inferno. Lucifer 29-35: 2003. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2004.
• Lucifer 6: Mansions of the Silence. Lucifer 36-41: 2003. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2004.
• Lucifer 7: Exodus. Lucifer 42-44, 46-49: 2004. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2005.
• Lucifer 8: The Wolf beneath the Tree. Lucifer 45, 50-54: 2004. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2005.
• Lucifer 9: Crux. Lucifer 55-61: 2005. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2006.
• Lucifer 10: Morningstar. Lucifer 62-69: 2006. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2006.
• Lucifer 11: Evensong. Lucifer – Nirvana: 2002 & Lucifer 70-75: 2006. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2007.

Some of the others, such as the 2013 "Overture" to The Sandman are also worth a look. I've provided a partial list below, but for more information, you could do worse than look here.

There's even, now, an annotated edition compiled by the indefatigable Leslie S. Klinger.

Leslie S. Klinger: The Annotated Sandman (2012-15)

•

Neil Gaiman (2013)

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman
(1960- )

Comics:


1. [with Dave McKean] Violent Cases (1987)
2. [with Dave McKean] Black Orchid (1988–1989 / 1991)
3. Sandman (1989-1996)
   • The Sandman Library I: Preludes & Nocturnes. 1991. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1995.
   • The Sandman Library II: The Doll’s House. 1990. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1995.
   • The Sandman Library III: Dream Country. 1991. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1995.
   • The Sandman Library IV: Season of Mists. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1992.
   • The Sandman Library V: A Game of You. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1993.
   • The Sandman Library VI: Fables & Reflections. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1993.
   • The Sandman Library VII: Brief Lives. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1994.
   • The Sandman Library VIII: World’s End. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1994.
   • The Sandman Library IX: The Kindly Ones. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1996.
   • The Sandman Library X: The Wake. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1997.
   • [with Yoshitaka Amano] The Sandman: The Dream Hunters. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1999.
   • The Sandman: Endless Nights. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2003.
   • The Sandman: Overture. 2013-15. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2016.
4. The Books of Magic (1990-1991)
   • The Books of Magic. 1990-91; 1993. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2001.
5. Death (1993-1996)
   • Death: The High Cost of Living. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1994.
   • Death: The Time of Your Life. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1997.
6. The Last Temptation (1994-1995)
   • [with Alice Cooper] The Last Temptation. Illustrated by Michael Zulli. 1994-95. Oregon: Dark Horse Comics, 2000.
7. [with Dave McKean] The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch (1994-1995)
8. Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days (1999)
   • Midnight Days. 1989-95. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1999.
9. Marvel 1602 (2003-2004)
   • Marvel 1602. Illustrated by Andy Kubert. 2003-4. New York: Marvel Worldwide Inc., 2013.
10. A Study in Emerald (2018)
    • A Study in Emerald. Illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque. Milwaukie, Oregon: Dark Horse Books, 2018.

Novels:


11. [with Terry Pratchett] Good Omens (1990)
    • Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. A Novel. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1990.
12. Neverwhere (1996)
    • Neverwhere. 1996. New York: HarperTorch, 2001.
    • Neverwhere: Author's Preferred Text, with How the Marquis Got His Coat Back. 1996 & 2014. William Morrow. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016.
13. Stardust (1999)
    • Stardust. London: Headline Book Publishing, 1999.
14. American Gods (2001)
    • American Gods. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2001.
    • American Gods: The Author's Preferred Text. 2001 & 2004. Review. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2005.
15. Anansi Boys (2005)
    • Anansi Boys. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2005.
16. [with Michael Reaves] InterWorld. InterWorld Series 1 (2007)
17. The Graveyard Book (2008)
    • The Graveyard Book. Illustrated by Chris Riddell. 2008. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2009.
18. [with Michael Reaves & Mallory Reaves] The Silver Dream. InterWorld Series 2 (2013)
19. The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013)
    • The Ocean at the End of the Lane. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2013.
20. [with Michael Reaves & Mallory Reaves] Eternity's Wheel. InterWorld Series 2 (2015)

Picture Books:


21. The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. Illustrated by Dave McKean (1997)
22. [with Gene Wolfe] A Walking Tour of the Shambles. Illustrated by Randy Broecker (2002)
23. Coraline. Illustrated by Dave McKean (2002)
    • Coraline. Illustrations by Dave McKean. 2002. New York: Harper Trophy, 2003.
24. The Wolves in the Walls. Illustrated by Dave McKean (2003)
25. Melinda. Illustrated by Dagmara Matuszak (2005)
26. MirrorMask. Illustrated by Dave McKean (2005)
    • Mirrormask. Illustrated by Dave McKean. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2005.
27. Odd and the Frost Giants. Illustrated by Brett Helquist (2008)
28. The Dangerous Alphabet. Illustrated by Gris Grimly (2008)
29. Blueberry Girl. Illustrated by Charles Vess (2009)
30. Crazy Hair. Illustrated by Dave McKean (2009)
31. Instructions. Illustrated by Charles Vess (2010)
32. Chu's Day. Illustrated by Adam Rex (2013)
33. Fortunately, the Milk. Illustrated by Skottie Young, US / Chris Riddell, UK / Boulet, France (2013)
34. Chu's First Day of School. Illustrated by Adam Rex (2014)
35. Hansel and Gretel. Illustrated by Lorenzo Mattotti (2014)
36. The Sleeper and the Spindle. Illustrated by Chris Riddell (2014)
37. Chu's Day at the Beach. Illustrated by Adam Rex (2016)
38. Cinnamon. Illustrated by Divya Srinivasan (2017)
39. Pirate Stew. Illustrated by Chris Riddell (2020)

Short Fiction:


40. Angels and Visitations (1993)
41. Smoke and Mirrors (1998)
    • Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions. 1999. Headline Feature. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2000.
42. Fragile Things (2006)
    • Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. 2006. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2013.
43. M is for Magic (2007)
44. Who Killed Amanda Palmer (2009)
45. A Little Gold Book of Ghastly Stuff (2011)
46. Trigger Warning (2015)
    • Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2015.
47. The Neil Gaiman Reader (2020)
    • The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction. Foreword by Marlon James. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2020.

Non-fiction:


48. Duran Duran: The First Four Years of the Fab Five (1984)
49. [with Kim Newman] Ghastly Beyond Belief (1985)
    • Ghastly Beyond Belief. Ed. Neil Gaiman & Kim Newman. Introduction by Harry Harrison. London: Arrow Books, 1985.
50. Don't Panic: A Biography of Douglas Adams (1988)
51. Adventures in the Dream Trade (2002)
52. Make Good Art: A Commencement Speech Given at the UArts on 17 May 2012 (2013)
53. The View from the Cheap Seats (2016)
    • The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Non-fiction. London: Headline Publishing Group, 2016.
54. Norse Mythology (2017)
    • Norse Mythology. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017.

Screenplays:


55. [with storyboards by Dave McKean] MirrorMask: The Illustrated Film Script (2005)
56. [with Roger Avary] Beowulf: The Script Book (2007)

Secondary:


57. Bender, Hy. The Sandman Companion. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 1999.

Hy Bender: The Sandman Companion (1999)

Classic Ghost Story Writers: E. T. A. Hoffmann

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822)

•

In a world which is indeed our world, the one we know, a world without devils or vampires, there occurs an event which cannot be explained by the laws of this same familiar world.

So says Tzvetan Todorov, in his famous essay on The Fantastic. He continues:

The person who experiences the event must opt for one of two possible solutions: either he is the victim of an illusion of the senses, of a product of the imagination – and laws of the world then remain what they are; or else the event had indeed taken place, it is an integral part of reality – but then this reality is controlled by laws unknown to us.

This moment of doubt, during which the person experiencing the event is unsure whether it is truly supernatural or just an illusion of some kind, constitutes the "fantastic" (for Todorov, at least):

The fantastic occupies the duration of this uncertainty. Once we choose one answer or the other, we leave the fantastic for a neighbouring genre, the uncanny or the marvellous. The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event.

Tzvetan Todorov: The Fantastic (1970)

So far, so good. I think we can easily understand the distinction he makes between the marvellous - a world where the supernatural does prevail (the world of Dracula, for instance) - and the uncanny, a situation where everyday events present themselves in a strange and deceptive light.

Further attempts to unpack just precisely what is meant by this term "the uncanny" take us rapidly into deeper waters, though. In terms of fiction, it has a tendency to bring us to the door of the German Romantic writer and musician, E. T. A. Hoffmann.

•


ETA Hoffmann Promenade

Freud's touchstone essay on 'The Uncanny' [unheimlich in German] first appeared in 1919. In outlining his sense of just what it actually consists of, he was forced to rely on the work of Hoffmann, whom he referred to as the "unrivalled master of the uncanny in literature."

German Psychiatrist Ernst Jensch had earlier suggested, in his own 1906 essay 'On the Psychology of the Uncanny,' that it should be defined as a product of:

... intellectual uncertainty; so that the uncanny would always, as it were, be something one does not know one’s way about in. The better oriented in his environment a person is, the less readily will he get the impression of something uncanny in regard to the objects and events in it.

Jensch goes on to specify Hoffmann's story "The Sandman" as a fruitful source for this anxiety, mainly because of the presence of the lifelike doll, Olympia, who is one of its principal characters:

In telling a story one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton and to do it in such a way that his attention is not focused directly upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be led to go into the matter and clear it up immediately.

Freud, however, saw Jensch's analysis as somewhat simplistic:

I cannot think – and I hope most readers of the story will agree with me – that the theme of the doll Olympia, who is to all appearances a living being, is by any means the only, or indeed the most important, element that must be held responsible for the quite unparalleled atmosphere of uncanniness evoked by the story.

Instead, Freud stresses "the idea of being robbed of one's eyes" as a "more striking instance of uncanniness" in the story. He goes on to link this to the uncanny effects that result from instances of "repetition of the same thing," linking this to his infamous repetition compulsion. He also comments on the central theme of blindness in 'The Sandman':

A study of dreams, phantasies and myths has taught us that anxiety about one's eyes, the fear of going blind, is often enough a substitute for the dread of being castrated. The self-blinding of the mythical criminal, Oedipus, was simply a mitigated form of the punishment of castration – the only punishment that was adequate for him by the lex talionis.

Masahiro Mori: The Uncanny Valley

Roboticist Masahiro Mori's 'uncanny valley' diagram, which attempts to analyses our persistent anxiety at the idea of the inanimate made animate, clearly owes a good deal to Jensch as well as Freud.

This influence can also be seen in Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection. Abjection can also be uncanny, when the observer recognizes something within the abject, possibly some component of what it was before it was 'cast out', whilst still simultaneously being repulsed by whatever it was that caused it to be cast out in the first place. Kristevan abjection lays special emphasis on the uncanny return of the past - particularly in the form of the 'uncanny stranger'.

'The Sandman' is certainly one of the strangest and most complex stories Hoffmann ever wrote. Whether it can quite bear the burden of all this weight of analysis is another question, but certainly repeated readings do little to dissipate the strange atmosphere it creates.

Perhaps a better source for Hoffmann's own views on the subject is his later story "The Uncanny Guest" (Der unheimliche Gast in German). The story begins with a long discussion of:

"... that incomprehensible, mysterious condition - deeply grounded in our human organism - which our minds strive in vain to fight against, and which we ought to take great care not to allow ourselves to yield to overmuch. What I mean is, the fear of the supernatural. We all know that the uncanny race of ghosts, the haunters, choose the night (and particularly in stormy weather) to arise from their darksome dwellings and set forth upon their mysterious wanderings. So that we are right in expecting some of those fearsome visitants just at a time like this."

The speaker, Dagobert, friend of Moritz (the main character in the story), turns out to be right to expect a 'fearsome visitant' as the culmination of the expectations engendered by the storm which is raging outside. He comes, in fact, at the climax of a story told by Moritz about just such a supernatural outsider, in the form of a mysterious 'Count' who (it eventually proves) was actually the subject of the anecdote. And, just as that story ends as a door crashes open, so does this story begin with another door - their own - crashing open.

One can see here that Hoffmann does not hesitate to employ the standard toolkit of the Gothic novelist: mysterious strangers, haunted ruins, buried treasure, and childhood loves which persist beyond the grave. However the element of psychological acuity lying behind these rather stagey properties may explain the comparative longevity of his stories. They always seem to imply more than they actually say: to promise more than their rather conventional denouements can ever provide.

•


Tales of Hoffmann

I have a number of different translations of Hoffmann's tales, but the stories in them overlap. Some, such as 'The Sandman,' are in all of them. Others occur only in one or two. There are 35 stories in the four collections I own. When you eliminate repetitions (or should I say doppelgängers?), there are only 21 left. Here's a list of them all, in rough chronological order:

1. Ritter Gluck
2. Don Juan
3. The Golden Flower Pot
4. A New Year's Eve Adventure (aka The Lost Reflection]
5. The Sandman
6. The Vow
7. The Jesuit Church in Glogau
8. The Entail
9. The Deserted House
10. Councillor Krespel
11. The Mines of Falun
12. Nutcracker and the King of Mice
13. A Ghost Story
14. Automata
15. Tobias Martin, Master Cooper, and His Men
16. The Uncanny Guest
17. Mademoiselle de Scudéri
18. Gamblers' Luck
19. Signor Formica
20. The King's Betrothed
21. The Doubles

And here they are listed, in bold, according to which of the various collections of his work they first appeared in:

E. T. A. Hoffmann: Kreisler



1. from Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier [Fantasy Pieces in the Manner of Callot] - 7 stories (1814)
   1. Ritter Gluck [Ritter Gluck]
   2. Kreisleriana
   3. Don Juan [Don Juan]
   4. Nachricht von den neuesten Schicksalen des Hundes Berganza
   5. Der Magnetiseur
   6. The Golden Flower Pot [Der goldne Topf]
   7. A New Year's Eve Adventure [Die Abenteuer der Silvesternacht]




E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Sandman



2. from Nachtstücke [Night-pieces] - 8 stories (1817)
   1. The Sandman [Der Sandmann]
   2. The Vow [Das Gelübde]
   3. Ignaz Denner
   4. The Jesuit Church in Glogau [Die Jesuiterkirche in G.]
   5. The Entail [Das Majorat]
   6. The Deserted House [Das öde Haus]
   7. Das Sanctus
   8. Das steinerne Herz




E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Double



3. from Die Serapionsbrüder [The Serapion Brotherhood] - 28 stories (1819)
   1. Der Einsiedler Serapion
   2. Councillor Krespel [Rat Krespel]
   3. Die Fermate
   4. Der Dichter und der Komponist
   5. Ein Fragment aus dem Leben dreier Freunde
   6. Der Artushof
   7. The Mines of Falun [Die Bergwerke zu Falun]
   8. Nutcracker and the King of Mice [Nußknacker und Mausekönig]
   9. Der Kampf der Sänger
   10. A Ghost Story [Eine Spukgeschichte]
   11. Automata [Die Automate]
   12. Doge und Dogaresse
   13. Alte und neue Kirchenmusik
   14. Tobias Martin, Master Cooper, and His Men [Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen]
   15. Das fremde Kind
   16. Nachricht aus dem Leben eines bekannten Mannes
   17. Die Brautwahl
   18. The Uncanny Guest [Der unheimliche Gast]
   19. Mademoiselle de Scudéri [Das Fräulein von Scuderi]
   20. Gamblers' Luck [Spielerglück]
   21. Der Baron von B.
   22. Signor Formica [Signor Formica]
   23. Zacharias Werner
   24. Erscheinungen
   25. Der Zusammenhang der Dinge
   26. Vampirismus
   27. Die ästhetische Teegesellschaft
   28. The King's Betrothed [Die Königsbraut]




E. T. A. Hoffmann: Hand drawings



4. from Letzte Erzählungen [Last Stories] - 13 stories (1825)
   1. Haimatochare
   2. Die Marquise de la Pivardiere
   3. Die Irrungen
   4. Die Geheimnisse
   5. Der Elementargeist
   6. Die Räuber
   7. The Doubles [Die Doppeltgänger] (1821)
   8. Datura fastuosa
   9. Meister Johannes Wacht
   10. Des Vetters Eckfenster
   11. Die Genesung
   12. Aus dem Nachlass:
       • Neueste Schicksale eines abenteuerlichen Mannes
       • Der Feind

E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Entail

•


Jacques Offenbach: The Tales of Hoffmann (1881)

So what are they like to read? Well, they're a fruitful source of opera libretti, for one thing. As well as The Tales of Hoffmann, above, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker is also based on one of Hoffmann's stories.

Some of them ('Tobias Martin,' 'Mademoiselle de Scudéri') are largely historical in inspiration - based on considerable research on Hoffmann's part. The ones he's most famous for are psychological tales about divided selves, automata and various other idées fixes - as much of the author as any of his characters, one often feels.

Have they stood the test of time? Certainly one can see the seeds of many of the ideas and motifs we associate with such giants as Gogol, Dostoevsky and Poe in Hoffmann, though there's no sense in pretending that his work is on a par with theirs in literary merit.

At times, though, in such works as 'The Sandman' or 'Councillor Krespel,' there's a kind of visionary power in Hoffmann which gives one the sense of an author who never quite reached his full stature. He was only in his mid-forties when he died, and much of his time up till then had been devoted to music rather than literature. He was, in fact, the first German composer who could really have been said to have been a Romantic, before Weber and Beethoven, and a potent influence on both of them.

Finally, Hoffmann must be seen more as a seedbed of ideas than the source of their complete fruition. The idea of combining complex psychological insights with the machinery of the horror story is all his, however. So much is owed by so many to his intuitions that it's unlikely that his work in this genre will ever be entirely superseded.

Todorov prefers to discuss such works as Count Jan Potocki's Manuscript Found at Saragossa not so much because he can't find useful analogues for his ideas in Hoffmann, but rather because Hoffmann had been such a fruitful source of inspiration to Freud and others that Todorov may have felt that it was time to find some texts that were less familiar. Hoffmann is, in that sense, perhaps best seen as equivalent in influence to a German Poe.

Here, then, is my own Hoffmann collection: by no means complete, but perhaps a good place to start:

•


E. T. A. Hoffmann: Gesammelte Werke

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm [later 'Amadeus'] Hoffmann
(1776-1822)

1. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Werke in zwei Bänden. Band 1: Romane. Ed. Carl Georg von Maassen & Georg Ellinger. Afterword by Walter Müller-Seidel. Notes by Wolfgang Kron. Jubliäumsbibliothek der deutschen Literatur. 2 vols. München: Winkler Verlag, n.d.
   
   
   • Die Elixiere des Teufels (1815)
   • Lebensansichten des Katers Murr (1820)


2. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Werke in zwei Bänden. Band 2: Erzählungen und Märchen. Ed. Carl Georg von Maassen & Georg Ellinger. Afterword by Walter Müller-Seidel. Notes by Wolfgang Kron. Jubliäumsbibliothek der deutschen Literatur. 2 vols. München: Winkler Verlag, n.d.
   
   
   • Die Serapionsbrüder (1819)
     Erster Band:
     1. Der Einsiedler Serapion
     2. Rat Krespel
     3. Die Fermate
     4. Der Dichter und der Komponist
     5. Ein Fragment aus dem Leben dreier Freunde
     6. Der Artushof
     7. Die Bergwerke zu Falun
     8. Nußknacker und Mausekönig
     Zweiter Band:
     9. Der Kampf der Sänger
     10. Eine Spukgeschichte
     11. Die Automate
     12. Doge und Dogaresse
     13. Alte und neue Kirchenmusik
     14. Meister Martin der Küfner und seine Gesellen
     15. Das fremde Kind
     Dritter Band:
     16. Nachricht aus dem Leben eines bekannten Mannes
     17. Die Brautwahl
     18. Der unheimliche Gast
     19. Das Fräulein von Scuderi
     20. Spielerglück
     21. Der Baron von B.
     Vierter Band:
     22. Signor Formica
     23. Zacharias Werner
     24. Erscheinungen
     25. Der Zusammenhang der Dinge
     26. Vampirismus
     27. Die ästhetische Teegesellschaft
     28. Die Königsbraut




Hugo Steiner-Prag, ed.: The Tales of Hoffmann (1943)



3. Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Tales of Hoffmann: Stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Translated out of the German by Various Hands, Illustrated with Lithographs by Hugo Steiner-Prag Together with a Prologue from the Illustrator. Introductory Essay by Arthur Ransome. Trans. J. T. Bealby, E. N. Bennett, Alex Ewing, Maria Labocceta, Jacques Le Clercq, Barrows Mussey & F. E. Pierce. The Limited Editions Club, for the George Macy Companies, Inc. New York: The Heritage Press, 1943.
   
   
   1. The Sandman
   2. The Mines of Falun
   3. Councillor Krespel
   4. Don Juan
   5. The Mystery of the Deserted House
   6. The Vow
   7. Mademoiselle de Scudéry
   8. The Entail
   9. The Uncanny Guest
   10. Gamblers' Luck




J. M. Cohen. trans.: Eight Tales of Hoffmann (1952)



4. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Eight Tales of Hoffmann. Trans. J. M. Cohen. London: Pan Books, 1952.
   
   
   1. The Lost Reflection
   2. The Sandman
   3. The Jesuit Church in Glogau
   4. The Deserted House
   5. Councillor Krespel
   6. The Mines of Falun
   7. A Ghost Story
   8. Gamblers' Luck




E. F. Bleiler, ed.: The Best Tales of Hoffmann (1967)



5. Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Best Tales of Hoffmann. Ed. E. F. Bleiler. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967.
   
   
   1. The Golden Flower Pot
   2. Automata
   3. A New Year's Eve Adventure
   4. Nutcracker and the King of Mice
   5. The Sand-Man
   6. Rath Krespel
   7. Tobias Martin, Master Cooper, and His Men
   8. The Mines of Falun
   9. Signor Formica
   10. The King's Betrothed




E. T. A. Hoffmann: Tales (1972)



6. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Tales. Ed. & Trans. Leonard J. Kent & Elizabeth C. Knight. Illustrated by Jacob Landau. 1969. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972.
   
   
   1. Ritter Gluck
   2. The Golden Pot
   3. The Sandman
   4. Councillor Krespel
   5. The Mines of Falun
   6. Mademoiselle de Scudéri
   7. The Doubles




E. T. A. Hoffmann: Tales of Hoffmann (1982)



7. Hoffmann, E. T. A. Tales of Hoffmann. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.
   
   
   1. Mademoiselle de Scudery
   2. The Sandman
   3. The Artushof
   4. Councillor Krespel
   5. The Entail
   6. Doge and Dogaressa
   7. The Mines of Falun
   8. The Choosing of the Bride




E. T. A. Hoffmann: The Golden Pot and Other Tales (2009)



8. Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Golden Pot and Other Tales: A New Translation. Trans. Ritchie Robertson. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
   
   
   1. The Golden Pot
   2. The Sandman
   3. Princess Brambilla
   4. Master Flea
   5. My Cousin's Corner Window

•


E. T. A. Hoffmann: Kater Murr