Despite the title of this book, it is far from a complete edition
of A. E. Coppard's short stories. I own the Knopf edition, which
came out back in the 1950's, and it contains 38 stories selected
from a corpus of over 200.

The selection is good and satisfying, but some of the omissions
are peculiar. In particular, I'd single out the absence of the
story "Black Dog," one of Coppard's best novella-length works.

The selection as such has no real clunkers, and it could serve
as a good introduction to Coppard's work, if the book can be
located. Coppard seems unjustly neglected these days, so it
might be difficult if one plans to wait for a new edition of
his work.

Personally, I'd like to see a _Complete Stories_, which I
would buy in a heartbeat. Such an occurrance seems of low
probability these days.

Readers who like these stories might give the stories of
Walter de la Mare, Frank O'Connor, and D.H Lawrence a
try (not Lawrence's novels, which are very different).

This is the last of the 14 Allan Quatermain novels that H. Rider Haggard wrote, and completes the loosely linked quartet that began with "Allan and the Holy Flower," continued into "The Ivory Child" and then "The Ancient Allan." (A reading of these earlier books is recommended before going into this one.) In this final book, Quatermain again partakes of the taduki drug, as he did in the previous two novels, and gets to see a previous incarnation of his--when he was Wi, the leader of a small tribe during one of the Ice Ages. The story is simply written but zips along at a brisk pace. There are several terrific action set pieces: Wi's fight with Henga, the previous chief of the tribe; the trapping of the wolf pack; the fight with the sabertooth; the battle with the Redbeards; the showdown with the aurochs; and the final cataclysm. The members of the tribe are sharply and sometimes humorously drawn. (Rudyard Kipling helped Haggard with the planning of this novel.) All in all, I really enjoyed this book, and thank Pulp Fictions UK for bringing it back into print. The great bulk of Haggard's work is currently OUT of print, and that is a real shame...

Victorian explorer Allan Quatermain experiences memories of a previous, prehistoric incarnation. If this book were written today it'd fit right in with the New Age Noodle crowd who like to do regressions to their previous lives, besides the usual Heroic Fantasy readers who know a bang-up adventure tale when they read one.

Personally, I believe that this is the greatest work that Holmes wrote. Through Elsie Venner, Holmes tried to oppose Calvin's idea that humans are morally responsible for their inherited flaws, and this is perfectly demonstrated through Elsie's serpentine characteristics and following "humanization" and death. It succeeds in being a forerunner of inherent symbolism in literature, but I feel that the black "mammy" character degrades this book in my eyes, just proving that Holmes was not as great or as original as we would hope. He did not have to stoop to such racism to prove a point or create a meaningful story. Still, his work deserves its rightful accolades.