THE ESSENTIAL PETER S. BEAGLE, VOLUME I

The first part of a two-volume retrospective from the author of The Last Unicorn (1968).

Volume 1, introduced by Jane Yolen, contains some of Beagle’s most classic stories, including “Come Lady Death,” in which a jaded British woman meets her match when she invites Death to her ball, and “Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros,” about a socially awkward academic’s relationship with a somewhat unusually presented and philosophically minded unicorn. “Lila the Werewolf” features the first appearance of Joe Farrell, the protagonist of Beagle’s novel The Folk of the Air (1986); fans of that book will be delighted to encounter Farrell in an additional story that takes place after the novel and features some interesting character growth on his part. The collection also contains the absolutely chilling “We Never Talk About My Brother,” the story of a news anchor with a secret and impossibly powerful control over the stories he reports, and the sweetly melancholy “Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel,” concerning a painter’s divinely compelling model. There are also whimsical works like “Gordon, the Self-Made Cat,” starring a mouse who refuses to accept that biology is destiny. Whether set in a fantastical landscape, the New York City of Beagle’s youth, or the invented northern California town of Avicenna, these are fables that explore how a brush with the uncanny can either change a life or simply spotlight what is already present. Magic is the lens through which the author shows us how fraught a mother-daughter relationship can be, how difficult it can be to let go of a dead friend or lover, and how a greater threat can unite two squabbling siblings. Delicate line drawings by artist Stephanie Law add a charming coda to each tale.

Brimming with magic, lyrical prose, and deeply felt emotion, this is, indeed, essential reading.