Isabellae Volume 1 The Night Man

It's Japan 1192, seven years since the battle of Dan-no-ura that marked the beginning of the feudal era. It's also been seven years since Isabellae Ashiwara started roaming the country, accompanied by her father's ghost, earning a living by the point of her sword. And seven years that she's been looking for her long lost sister, Siuko. The time has at last come for this bounty hunter to face up to her past and take charge of her destiny.

In the midst of feudal Japan, Isabellae Ashiwara, the fiercely independent daughter of a Celtic witch and a samurai master, roams the countryside with her father's ghost at her side, earning her living as a highly-skilled bounty hunter while searching for her long-lost sister, Siuko. Acquiring a misfit crew along the way, Isabellae battles against evil both worldly and supernatural, inching ever closer to discovering the truth of her haunted past and embracing her destiny. From the brilliant minds of Raule and Gabor, Dark Horse Books is thrilled to present the first volume of Isabellae, collecting the first three French volumes in one compendium and offered in English print-format for the first time. Collects French volumes 1-3

In this epic conclusion to the series, Isabellae battles against ancient Celtic beasts and deities that threaten the destruction of humanity. Curious about her origins and in search of long-lost Celtic relatives, Isabellae travels to Ireland. But when the ancient druids of the Emerald Isle make a deal with the monstrous Formorian gods, Isabellae finds herself battling in a war for control with her English and Irish allies! From the innovative minds of Spanish creators Raule and Gabor, Dark Horse Books is excited to present Isabellae Volume 2, which collects the final three volumes of the original French series, available in English for the first time. Collects French albums 4-6.

Renowned today for his contribution to the rise of the modern European fairy tale, Giovan Francesco Straparola (c. 1480–c. 1557) is particularly known for his dazzling anthology The Pleasant Nights. Originally published in Venice in 1550 and 1553, this collection features seventy-three folk stories, fables, jests, and pseudo-histories, including nine tales we might now designate for ‘mature readers’ and seventeen proto-fairy tales. Nearly all of these stories, including classics such as ‘Puss in Boots,’ made their first ever appearance in this collection; together, the tales comprise one of the most varied and engaging Renaissance miscellanies ever produced. Its appeal sustained it through twenty-six editions in the first sixty years. This full critical edition of The Pleasant Nights presents these stories in English for the first time in over a century. The text takes its inspiration from the celebrated Waters translation, which is entirely revised here to render it both more faithful to the original and more sparkishly idiomatic than ever before. The stories are accompanied by a rich sampling of illustrations, including originals from nineteenth-century English and French versions of the text. As a comprehensive critical and historical edition, these volumes contain far more information on the stories than can be found in any existing studies, literary histories, or Italian editions of the work. Donald Beecher provides a lengthy introduction discussing Straparola as an author, the nature of fairy tales and their passage through oral culture, and how this phenomenon provides a new reservoir of stories for literary adaptation. Moreover, the stories all feature extensive commentaries analysing not only their themes but also their fascinating provenances, drawing on thousands of analogue tales going back to ancient Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic stories. Immensely entertaining and readable, The Pleasant Nights will appeal to anyone interested in fairy tales, ancient stories, and folk creations. Such readers will also enjoy Beecher’s academically solid and erudite commentaries, which unfold in a manner as light and amusing as the stories themselves.

Reproduction of the original: The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland by Alice Bertha Gomme

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

The Mysteries of London in 4 volumes is a "penny blood" classic. There are many plots in the story, but the overarching purpose is to reveal different facets of life in London, from its seedy underbelly to its over-indulgent and corrupt aristocrats. The Mysteries of London are considered to be among the seminal works of the Victorian "urban mysteries" genre, a style of sensational fiction which adapted elements of Gothic novels – with their haunted castles, innocent noble damsels in distress and nefarious villains – to produce stories which instead emphasized the poverty, crime, and violence of a great metropolis, complete with detailed and often sympathetic descriptions of the lives of lower-class lawbreakers and extensive glossaries of thieves' cant, all interwoven with a frank sexuality not usually found in popular fiction of the time.

The Apex Book of World SF, edited by Lavie Tidhar, features award-winning science fiction and fantasy short stories from Asia, Eastern Europe and around the world. The world of speculative fiction is expansive; it covers more than one country, one continent, one culture. Collected here are sixteen stories penned by authors from Thailand, the Philippines, China, Israel, Pakistan, Serbia, Croatia, Malaysia, and other countries across the globe. Each one tells a tale breathtakingly vast and varied, whether caught in the ghosts of the past or entangled in a postmodern age. Among the spirits, technology, and deep recesses of the human mind, stories abound. Kites sail to the stars, technology transcends physics, and wheels cry out in the night. Memories come and go like fading echoes and a train carries its passengers through more than simple space and time. Dark and bright, beautiful and haunting, the stories herein represent speculative fiction from a sampling of the finest authors from around the world. Table of Contents: S.P. Somtow (Thailand) — “The Bird Catcher” Jetse de Vries (Netherlands) — “Transcendence Express” Guy Hasson (Israel) — “The Levantine Experiments” Han Song (China) — “The Wheel of Samsara” Kaaron Warren (Australia/Fiji) — “Ghost Jail” Yang Ping (China) — “Wizard World” Dean Francis Alfar (Philippines) — “L’Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars)” Nir Yaniv (Israel) — “Cinderers” Jamil Nasir (Palestine) — “The Allah Stairs” Tunku Halim (Malaysia) — “Biggest Baddest Bomoh” Aliette de Bodard (France) — “The Lost Xuyan Bride” Kristin Mandigma (Philippines) — “Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-realist Aswang” Aleksandar Žiljak (Croatia) — “An Evening in the City Coffehouse, With Lydia on My Mind” Anil Menon (India) — “Into the Night” Mélanie Fazi (France, translated by Christopher Priest) — “Elegy” Zoran Živković (Serbia, translated by Alice Copple-Tošić) — “Compartments” Cover art and design by Sarah Anne Langton. Reviews: “From S.P. Somtow’s World Fantasy Award-winning “The Bird Catcher,” a restrained horror tale of a young boy’s friendship with Thailand’s most infamous human “monster,” to “Wizard World,” Galaxy Award winner Yang Ping’s story of high-tech gamers, this extraordinary anthology of 16 tales introduces English-speaking readers to some of the world’s best writers of sf, horror, fantasy, and metafiction. Contributors include Jamil Nasir (Palestine), Aleksandar Ziljak (Croatia), Guy Hasson (Israel), Kaaron Warren (Australia/Fiji), and Jetse de Vries (Netherlands). VERDICT This literary window into the international world of imaginative fiction, the first in a new series, is sure to appeal to adventurous sf fans and readers of fiction in translation." —Library Journal “The great thing about Tidhar’s collection is that it is full of such masterpieces. You do have to get used to having your mind warped as if by some powerful psychedelic. You’ll definitely feel that way after Zoran Zivkovic and his Godot-like explorations. Or after Guy Hassan’s thought experiment about the nature of mind and thought. But once you get used to the idea, you can settle in and enjoy the ride.” —42SciFi-Fantasy.com, Randy Lazarus "These stories deserve to be heard!" —Frederik Pohl