And speaking of style, I mentioned Kersh's style in another FFB post. All the stories in this collection are written in a style that would probably be thought of by most readers today as antiquated. It was probably a bit old-fashioned even when the stories originally appeared. However, it's not as rococo as the style in The Secret Masters. The style was fine by me. I can adjust to styles from different eras. I know some people can't, though.
If you're of a mind to, you can download the collection at munseys.com.
Here's the complete Toc:
Men Without Bones
The Shady Life of Annibal
The Ape and the Mystery
The Oxoxoco Bottle
Thicker than Water
The Madwoman
The Terrible Ride of Colonel Tessier
The Dancing Doll
The Hack
Ladies or Clothes
In a Room Without Walls
Clock Without Hands
The Epistle of Simple Simon
6 comments:
Few people know it but Men Without Bones was the original name of Men Without Hats.
Anyway, good title. The only Kersh collection I've read was the one published by Crippen & Landru about Karmesin.
Jeff
I read MEN WITHOUT BONES when it was first published. Kersh was a quirky writer, but I like his originality.
This is one of only three mass-market Kersh collections to be published in the US; the others were ON AN ODD NOTE (Ballantine, 1958) and NIGHTSHADE AND DAMNATIONS, edited by Harlan Ellison (Fawcett, 1967). The latter introduced me to Kersh in 1972, and I've been hooked ever since; I now have an extensive Kersh collection running over 30 volumes. Kerhs was a wonderful writer who deserves to be re-introduced to the reading world on a larger scale than recent small-press collections have been able to reach. Thanks for this posting!
I read this in anthology of different writers, but I can't remember which one.
I thought it was a decent story, but I wasn't blown away. I did really like Kersh's novel Night and the City.
Kersh of course is Harlan Ellison's favorite writer.
There're the styles that have fallen out of favor...and then the attitudes that are rather less acceptable, including insistences about How Things And People Are that were more likely to go unchallenged (not entirely however), back when...a book I didn't finish for this week had a big rock in the tapioca of that sort for me. All women are this, all Mexicans are that...happily for me, I don't remember much of that in Kersh...but it's been a while (and Mike Stamm was kind enough to send along some of his duplicate copies of Kersh collections some years back).
The cover looks very familiar, but I'm sure I neither have nor have read this book. It's quite tempting.
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