"I wonder if the reverse is not also in some way true. That
the artist is constantly working on anelaborate and fantasticated
self-portrait, but at the end has drawn, unbeknownst, a picture of the
world." – Clive Barker, "Private Legends: An Introduction"
Clive Barker, award-winning and New York Times
bestselling author, playwright, artist, producer, director,
screenwriter, and one of the world's master storytellers, writing in
the haunting and moving traditions of Poe and Dickens, invites us to
join him on a dazzling, wondrous journey through the worlds of his
imagination and to experience visions, dreams, love, terror, heaven and
hell, and revenge.
As we read, we discover and explore the
dream-sea Quiddity and the islands of Ephemeris; the five Dominions of
the Imajica, of which the Earth is but an imperfect facet; the
rapturous world woven into an ancient, threadbare carpet in a derelict
house in Liverpool; Hood's Holiday House where each day contains four
seasons and children's wishes may come true; the Sky Room of Galilee,
where the creation of the universe may be witnessed; and the clubs and
bars of San Francisco and New York, in which all manner of sexual
adventures lie in wait.
In these stories, the real and the
miraculous are within a breath of one another, life gives way to death,
and death to life; doorways open into other states of existence, and
each doorway leads us back to our own dreams and fears.
The Essential Clive Barker is an irresistible narrative compendium that superbly represents the
impressive quality and range of Barker's fiction, spanning more than
twenty years of writing. It contains more than seventy excerpts from
novels and plays and four full-length short stories, all personally
selected by Barker, and offers a privileged insight into a remarkable
writer and his art.
Contents:
- Private Legends: an Introduction
- Doorways
- Journeys
- Visions and Dreams
- Lives
- Old Humanity
- Bestiary
- Love
- Terrors
- The Body
- Worlds
- Making and Unmaking
- Memory
- Art
