Billy Martin, formerly Poppy Z. Brite, is an American author. He initially achieved notoriety in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s by publishing a string of successful novels and short story collections. He is best known for his novels Lost Souls (1992), Drawing Blood (1993), and Exquisite Corpse (1996). His later work moved into the genre of dark comedy, with many stories set in the New Orleans restaurant world. Martin's novels are typically standalone books but may feature recurring characters from previous novels and short stories. Much of his work features openly bisexual and gay characters.
Ed Greenwood is a Canadian fantasy writer and the original creator of the Forgotten Realms game world. He began writing articles about the Forgotten Realms for Dragon magazine beginning in 1979, and subsequently sold the rights to the setting to TSR, the creators of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, in 1986. He has written many Forgotten Realms novels, as well as numerous articles and D&D game supplement books.
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor, poet and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin. He is best known for his work in the 1970s as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, which introduced readers to many overlooked classics of the fantasy genre.
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's original logo was a pair of mirrored letter Bs back to back, while its current logo is two Bs stacked to form an elaborate gate. The firm's early editors were Stanley Kauffmann and Bernard Shir-Cliff.
Francis Marion Crawford was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastical stories.
Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women is a fantasy novel by Scottish writer George MacDonald, first published in London in 1858. It was later reprinted in paperback by Ballantine Books as the fourteenth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in April 1970.
Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning. The modern genre is distinguished from tales and folklore which contain fantastic elements, first by the acknowledged fictitious nature of the work, and second by the naming of an author. Works in which the marvels were not necessarily believed, or only half-believed, such as the European romances of chivalry and the tales of the Arabian Nights, slowly evolved into works with such traits. Authors like George MacDonald created the first explicitly fantastic works.
The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series was an imprint of American publisher Ballantine Books. Launched in 1969, the series reissued a number of works of fantasy literature which were out of print or dispersed in back issues of pulp magazines, in cheap paperback form—including works by authors such as James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, Ernest Bramah, Hope Mirrlees, and William Morris. The series lasted until 1974.
Harold Warner Munn was an American writer of fantasy, horror and poetry, best remembered for his early stories in Weird Tales. He was an early friend and associate of authors H. P. Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn. He has been described by fellow author Jessica Amanda Salmonson, who interviewed him during 1978, as "the ultimate gentleman" and "a gentle, calm, warm, and good friend." He was known for his intricate plotting and the careful research that he did for his stories, a habit he traced back to two mistakes made when he wrote his early story "The City of Spiders".
The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations is an episodic horror novel by British writer Arthur Machen, first published in 1895 in The Bodley Head's Keynotes Series. It was revived in paperback by Ballantine Books as the forty-eighth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1972.
John William Wall, pen name Sarban, was a British writer and diplomat. Wall's diplomatic career lasted more than thirty years, but his writing career as Sarban was brief and not prolific, ending during the early 1950s. Sarban is described in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy as "a subtle, literate teller of tales, conscious of the darker and less acceptable implications that underlie much popular literature". Wall cited the supernatural fiction of Arthur Machen and Walter de la Mare as influences on his work.
The King of Elfland's Daughter is a 1924 fantasy novel by Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany. It is widely recognized as one of the most influential and acclaimed works in all of fantasy literature. Although the novel faded into relative obscurity following its initial release, it found new longevity and wider critical acclaim when a paperback edition was released in 1969 as the second volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. It has also been included in a more recent series of books reprinting the best of modern fantasy, the Fantasy Masterworks series. While seen as highly influential upon the genre as a whole, the novel was particularly formative in the (later-named) subgenres of fairytale fantasy and high fantasy.
Zothique is a collection of fantasy short stories by Clark Ashton Smith, edited by Lin Carter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the sixteenth volume of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in June 1970. It was the first themed collection of Smith's works assembled by Carter for the series. The stories were originally published in various fantasy magazines in the 1930s, notably Weird Tales.
The People of the Mist is a classic lost race fantasy novel written by H. Rider Haggard. It was first published serially in the weekly magazine Tit-Bits, between December 1893 and August 1894; the first edition in book form was published in London by Longman in October, 1894. It was reprinted in December, 1973 by Ballantine Books as the sixty-third paperback volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.
The Shaving of Shagpat: An Arabian Entertainment is a fantasy novel by English writer George Meredith. It was first published in hardcover by Chapman and Hall in 1856, and there have been numerous editions since. Its importance in the history of fantasy literature was recognized by its reissuing by Ballantine Books as the seventeenth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in July 1970. The Ballantine edition includes an introduction by Lin Carter.
The Wallet of Kai Lung is a collection of fantasy stories by English writer Ernest Bramah, all but the last of which feature Kai Lung, an itinerant story-teller of ancient China. It was first published in hardcover in London by Grant Richards in 1900, and there have been numerous editions since. Its initial tale, "The Transmutation of Ling", was also issued by the same publisher as a separate chapbook in 1911. The collection's importance in the history of fantasy literature was recognized by the anthologization of two of its tales in the celebrated Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, edited by Lin Carter and published by Ballantine Books; "The Vision of Yin" in Discoveries in Fantasy, and "The Transmutation of Ling" in Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy Volume II.
John Picacio is an American artist specializing in science fiction, fantasy and horror illustration.
Red Moon and Black Mountain: the End of the House of Kendreth is a fantasy novel by Joy Chant, the first of three set in her world of Vandarei. It was first published in the U.K. in hardcover by George Allen & Unwin, London, in 1970. The first paperback edition was issued by Ballantine Books as the thirty-eighth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in March, 1971. The Ballantine edition, which was also the first American edition, includes an introduction by Lin Carter and a cover illustrations by Bob Pepper. U.S. hardcover editions followed from the Science Fiction Book Club and Dutton (1976). The book was reprinted frequently by various publishers in both countries through 1983, but has since gone out of print. It has also been translated into German and Swedish.
The Tales of the Genii: or, the Delightful Lessons of Horam, The Son of Asmar is a collection by the English author James Ridley, consisting of Oriental pastiche fantasy tales modeled on those of the Arabian Nights. The work was originally passed off as an authentic work by a Persian imam named Horam translated into English by "Sir Charles Morell, formerly ambassador from the British Settlements in India to the Great Mogul" and published by an anonymous "editor." It is the work for which Ridley is chiefly remembered.
