"The Man Who Loved a Double Bass" first appeared in Storyteller test, July 1962. "A Very, Very Great Lady and Her Son at Home" was first published in Nonesuch, in Autumn 1965 and "A Victorian Fable (with Glossary)" was also published in Nonesuch, in Summer/Autumn 1966.
"A Souvenir of Japan", "The Executioners Beautiful Daughter", "The Loves of Lady Purple", "The Smile of Winter", "Peing to the Heart of the Forest", "Flesh and the Mirror", "Master", "Refles" and "Elegy for a Freelance", writteween 1970 and 1973, were all inally published in Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (Quartet Books, 1974).
"The Bloody Chamber" and "The Tigers Bride" first appeared in The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (Victollancz, 1979). "The Courtship of Mr Lyon" was inally published in British Vogue , "Puss-in-Boots" appeared ihology The Straw and the Gold, edited by Emma Tennant (Pierrot Books, 1979). "The Erl-King" appeared in Bananas (October, 1977), "The Snow Child" was broadcast on the BBC Radio Four programme Not Now, Im Listening. "The Lady of the House of Love" was first published in The Iowa Review (Summer/Autumn 1975), "The Werewolf" in South-West Arts Review (No 2, October, 1977), "The pany of Wolves" in Bananas (April, 1977) and "Wolf-Alice" in Stand (Winter, 1978, vol. 2, No 2).
"Black Venus" first appeared i Editions in 1980, "The Kiss" was inally published in Harpers and Queen, in 1977, "Our Lady of the Massacre" appeared iurday Night Reader as "Captured by the Red Man" in 1979. "The et of Edgar Allan Poe" ublished in Interzone in 1982, as was "Overture and Ial Music for A Midsummer Nights Dream". "Peter and the Wolf" is from Firebird 1, 1982. A version of "The Kit Child" ublished in Vogue, 1979, and "The Fall River Axe Murder" inally appeared in The London Review of Books in 1981 uhe title "Mis-en-Se for Parricide".
A version of "Lizzies Tiger" was first published in opolitan iember 1981, and broadcast on Radio Three. "John Fords Tis Pity Shes a Whore" inally appeared in Granta 25, Autumn, 1988. "Gun for the Devil" was written as a draft for a splay and published in Ameri Ghosts and Old World Wonders (Chatto & Windus, 1993). "The Mert of Shadows" ublished in the London Review of Books in October 1989. "Ali Prague or The Curious Room" appeared in Spell, [Swiss Papers in English Language and Literature], (vol 5, 1990) and "The Ghost Ships" was first published in Ameri Ghosts and Old World Wonders (Chatto & Windus, 1993). "In Pantoland" was inally published in the Guardian in December 1991. "Ashputtle or The Mhost" was first published in the Virago Book of Ghost Stories (Virago, 1987), and a shorter version ublished in Soho Square. A version of "Impressions: The Wrightsman Magdalene" inally appeared in FMR Magazine in February 1992.
"The Snow Pavilion" is published here for the first time. "The Scarlet House" was inally published in A Book of porary Nightmares (Michael Joseph, 1977) and "The Quilt Maker" ublished in Sex and Sensibility: Stories by porary Women Writers from Nine tries (Sidgwick & Ja, 1981).