Fred Chappell is one of our most brilliant and versatile authors, with many novels, short stories, and volumes of poetry to his credit. This anthology bears witness to the scope of his career: a rich body of narrative and lyrical fictions ranging over history, mythology, science, philosophy, and Chappell's own life. He has been recognized as a storyteller "to put on the shelf with Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and Eudora Welty" (The Washington Post). The Fred Chappell Reader is full of stories, including a complete novel, Dagon; substantial portions of four other novels; several short stories (two of which are previously uncollected); and poems culled from his books, an achievement for which Chappell shared (with John Ashbery) the prestigious Bolligen Prize in 1985. Here is an important and thoroughly rewarding selection of work by a major American writer.

"What's Artichokes?": An Introduction to the Work of Fred Chappell by Dabney StuartI. NOVELSFrom It Is Time, Lord, Chapters 1-3From The Inkling, Chapters 1-3DagonFrom The Gaudy Place, Chapter 1: ArkieFrom I Am One of You ForeverII. SHORT STORIESFrom Moments of Light"Mrs. Franklin Ascends"; "Thatch Retaliates"; "Moments of Light"; "The Thousand Ways"; "Children of Strikers"; "Blue Dive"Uncollected Stories"Linnaeus Forgets"; "Notes Toward a Theory of Flight"III. POETRYFrom The World Between the Eyes"February"; "Tiros II"; "Death of W.H. Auden"; "Seated Figure" From Midquest"The River Awakening in the Sea"; "My Grandmother Washes Her Feet"; "Cleaning the Well"; "Dead Soldiers"; "Rimbaud Fire Letter to Jim Applewhite"; "My Grandfather's Church Goes Up"; "Burning the Frankenstein Monster: Elegiac Letter to Richard Dillard"; "Second Wind"; "My Father's Hurricane"; "Three Sheets in the Wind: Virgil Campbell Confesses"; "Remembering Wind Mountain at Sunset"; "My Mother's Hard Row to Hoe"; "My Father Washes His Hands"; "Susan's Morning Dream of Her Garden"; "My Grandmother's Dream of Plowing"; "Earthsleep" From Castle Tzingal"The Homunculus"; "The Admiral"; "Song for Disembodied Voice"; "The Queen"; "Epilogue: Song for Disembodied Voice"From Source"Child in the Fog"; "Humility"; "Awakening to Music"; "Narcissus and Echo"; "Recovery of Sexual Desire after a Bad Cold"; "Rib"; "The Virtues"; "Message"; "Forever Mountain"Afterword: "A Pact with Faustus"Bibliography