The Doll Short Stories

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF REBECCA. 'She wrote exciting plots, she was highly skilled at arousing suspense' GUARDIAN 'One of the last century's most original literary talents' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Du Maurier employs well the assured balancing of uncanny possibilities ... and the bitterly wry sense of absurdity that were to characterise her finest fiction' HELEN TAYLOR, INDEPENDENT 'I want to know if men realise when they are insane. Sometimes I think that my brain cannot hold together, it is filled with too much horror - too much despair . . . I cannot sleep, I cannot close my eyes without seeing his damned face. If only it had been a dream.' This collection showcases the budding talent and fierce imagination of Daphne du Maurier, before she went on to write one of the most beloved novels of all time. In these tales of human frailty and obsession, a waterlogged notebook washes ashore, revealing a dark story of jealousy and passion; a vicar coaches a young couple divided by class issues and an older man falls perilously in love with a much younger woman. Each tale demonstrates du Maurier's extraordinary storytelling gifts and her deep understanding of human nature.

A young girl and her family arrive in an airport in a new country. They are refugees, migrants who have travelled across the world to find safety. Strangers greet them, and one of them gives the little girl a doll. Decades later, that little girl is grown up and she has the chance to welcome a group of refugees who are newly arrived in her adopted country. To the youngest of them, a little girl, she gives a doll, knowing it will help make her feel welcome. Inspired by real events.

“Du Maurier is in a class by herself.” —New York Times Perhaps best known for her immortal gothic masterwork Rebecca—the basis for the Academy Award-winning motion picture directed by Alfred Hitchcock—Daphne de Maurier began her illustrious writing career penning short stories. In The Doll, thirteen of du Maurier’s early shorter fictional works have been collected—each story written before the author’s twenty-third birthday and some in print for the first time since the 1930s. Compelling tales of human foibles and tragic romance, the stories in The Doll represent the emergence of a remarkable literary talent who later went on to create Jamaica Inn, The Birds, and other classic works. This breathtaking collection of short fiction belongs on the bookshelf of every Daphne du Maurier fan.

This Bram Stoker Award–winning collection is “certain to stick in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Includes “Big Momma,” a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Short Story Here are six of Joyce Carol Oates’s most “frightening—and deeply disturbing—short stories” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). In the titular story, a boy becomes obsessed with his cousin’s doll after her tragic death. As he grows older, he begins to collect “found dolls” from surrounding neighborhoods . . . each with its own sinister significance. In “Gun Accident,” a teenage girl is delighted to house-sit for her favorite teacher, until an intruder forces his way inside—changing more than one life forever. The collection closes with the taut tale of a mystery bookstore owner whose designs on a rare bookshop in scenic New Hampshire devolve into a menacing game with real-life consequences. “At the heart of each story is a predator-prey relationship, and what makes them so terrifying is that most of us can easily picture ourselves as the prey, at least at some time during our lives” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). “Everything she writes, in whatever genre, has an air of dread, because she deals in vulnerabilities and inevitabilities, in the desperate needs that drive people . . . to their fates. A sense of helplessness is the essence of horror, and Oates conveys that feeling as well as any writer around.” —Terrence Rafferty, The New York Times Book Review “One of the stranger parts of the human condition may be our deep fascination, and at times troubling exploration, of the darker aspects of our nature . . . No other author explores the ugly, and at times, blazingly unapologetic underbelly of these impulses quite like Joyce Carol Oates in The Doll-Master.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “In her new collection . . . [Oates] relishes moments of gothic melodrama, while rooting them firmly in grindingly ordinary American lives.” —The Guardian “Oates convincingly demonstrates her mastery of the macabre with this superlative story collection . . . This devil’s half-dozen of dread and suspense is a must read.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

In this “sharp, scary, gorgeously evocative tale of love, art, and obsession” (Paula Hawkins, bestselling author of The Girl on the Train), a beautiful young woman aspires to be an artist, while a man’s dark obsession may destroy her world forever. The Doll Factory is a sweeping tale of curiosity, love, and possession set among all the sordidness and soaring ambition of 1850s London. The greatest spectacle London has ever seen is being erected in Hyde Park and, among the crowd watching, two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist of unique beauty, it is the encounter of a moment—forgotten seconds later—but for Silas, a curiosity collector enchanted by the strange and beautiful, the meeting marks a new beginning. When Iris is asked to model for Pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint, and suddenly her world expands beyond anything she ever dreamed of. But she has no idea that evil stalks her. Silas, it seems, has thought of only one thing since that chance meeting, and his obsession is darkening by the day...

The Doll Collection is exactly what it sounds like: a treasured toy box of all-original dark stories about dolls of all types, including everything from puppets and poppets to mannequins and baby dolls. Featuring everything from life-sized clockwork dolls to all-too-human Betsy Wetsy-type baby dolls, these stories play into the true creepiness of the doll trope, but avoid the clichés that often show up in stories of this type. Master anthologist Ellen Datlow has assembled a list of beautiful and terrifying stories from bestselling and critically acclaimed authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Seanan McGuire, Carrie Vaughn, Pat Cadigan, Tim Lebbon, Richard Kadrey, Genevieve Valentine, and Jeffrey Ford. The collection is illustrated with photographs of dolls taken by Datlow and other devoted doll collectors from the science fiction and fantasy field. The result is a star-studded collection exploring one of the most primal fears of readers of dark fiction everywhere, and one that every reader will want to add to their own collection. Stories in this anthology by: Stephen Gallagher, Joyce Carol Oates, Gemma Files, Pat Cadigan, Lucy Sussex, Tim Lebbon, Seanan McGuire, Carrie Vaughn, Stephen Graham Jones, Miranda Siemienowicz, Mary Robinette Kowal, Richard Bowes, Genevieve Valentine, Richard Kadrey, Veronica Schanoes, John Langan, Jeffrey Ford At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

More than anything, William wants a doll. "Don't be a creep," says his brother. "Sissy, sissy," chants the boy next door. Then one day someone really understands William's wish, and makes it easy for others to understand, too.