Signed limited edition hardcover of only 300 copies. 239 pages, smyth sewn binding with dust jacket. Book is in new unread condition.

Published by Tartarus Press

About this book:

The humans who inhabit Dream Fox and Other Strange Stories seem destined to test the limitations of rational existence. Some have accidentally strayed into no-man’s land, such as the narrator of ‘Bipolarity’ who must decide how to learn to live (or not) with her mental illness; or the protagonist of ‘Beguiled’ who may be forced by family attitudes into social obscurity; or, in ‘School Trip’, unpromising June’s unexpected discovery of her own ‘special powers’. Other stories, such as ‘Home Comforts’, are more playful, although the uncanny is never far away.

Dream Fox also includes ‘a book within a book’: Mary Belgrove’s Book of Unusual Experiences—containing nine diverse accounts of weird and paranormal happenings written by those who experienced them, compiled and commented upon by the eponymous Ms Belgrove, whose dying wish is to publish evidence of such events for scientists to study. Who can resist accounts of indestructible mushrooms, a country house party that goes disastrously wrong, prehistoric wish-fulfilment magic, or the dream-fuelled psychedelic love story that is ‘View from a Tower’?

Dream Fox and Other Strange Stories is Rosalie Parker’s fifth collection of strange tales.

Cover image: ‘Crossing an Iced-Over Stream’ by Gina Litherland.

Reviews:

From The Endless Bookshelf on Twitter: ‘current reading: Rosalie Parker, Dream Fox and Other Strange Stories, Tartarus Press, [2023]. A beautiful book. Collection of 18 stories, plus “Mary Belgrove’s Book of Unusual Experiences” . . . to read “Mary Belgrove’s Book of Unusual Experiences” is to find an unexpected, fascinating book on a bargain shelf or at a rummage sale, & learn that the world is not such a tidy, rational place [the vanity press frame story is very funny, too].’