The October Country

The October Country has 20 macabre Bradbury stories, reprinting 15 of the 27 stories of his 1947 Dark Carnival & adds 4 more published elsewhere. It was published in numerous Ballantine editons, in the UK by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1956, & reissued in 1976 by Grafton, HarperCollins’ imprint. The 1976 UK paper edition includes The Traveler, originally from Dark Carnival, & omits The Next In Line, The Lake, The Small Assassin, The Crowd, Jack-In-The-Box, The Man Upstairs & The Cistern.
“The Dwarf” A Hall of Mirrors owner & a kid observe a dwarf who uses mirrors to make himself seem taller.
“The Next in Line” A couple find a Mexican cemetery with a shocking policy regarding the interred whose families don’t pay.
“The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse” A dull man becomes an avant garde craze precisely because he’s boring.
“Skeleton” A man convinced his skeleton is out to ruin him consults an unorthodox specialist.
“The Jar” A poor farmer buys a jar with something floating in it for $12. It becomes a conversation piece. His wife cannot stand the jar or him.
“The Lake” A man revisits his birthplace & recalls a friend who drowned in a lake during childhood.
“The Emissary” A sick boy who can’t go outside has but two connections to the world, his dog & a neighbor woman. The neighbor dies. The dog runs off.
“Touched With Fire” aka “Shopping for Death” Two old men push fulfillment on unhappy people. They unsuccessfully try to do so with a woman whose story ends bloodily.
“The Small Assassin” A woman is convinced her newborn aims to kill her.
“The Crowd” A man discovers something about crowds forming around accidents.
“Jack-in-the-Box” A boy lives with his mother in a secluded mansion. She raises him to be God, telling him his father, the original God, was killed by beasts outside.
“The Scythe” A man has a powerful scythe & a wheat field. He discovers reaping is more than meets the eye.
“Uncle Einar” The Elliots are a family of movie monsters & immortals. Uncle Einar tries to find a way into the sky after damaging his wings.
“The Wind” A former travel writer fears the winds he defied around the world are gathering to kill him.
“The Man Upstairs” A boy suspects the man renting the upper room of his house to be more than human.
“There Was an Old Woman” An old woman defied death. Death tricked her & stole her body but she wouldn’t let that stop her.
“The Cistern” A woman tells her sister how magical the land under the sewer must be, where dead lovers are reunited.
“Homecoming” Einar & the Elliots return to the ancestral home as seen thru the eyes of Timothy, a mortal child left on their doorstep who longs to be like them. It’s the basis for 2001’s From the Dust Returned.
“The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone” Fans track down a writer who chose to stop writing & withdraw, & get his story from him.