Tales from the White Hart is a collection of short stories by science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 writer Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...

, in the "club tales" style.

Thirteen of the fifteen stories originally appeared across a number of different publications. "Moving Spirit" and "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch" were first published in this book and hence presumably were written specifically for it. "Defenestration" rounds off the cycle of stories and explicitly mentions their book publication.

The White Hart

White Hart

The White Hart was the personal emblem and livery of Richard II, who derived it from the arms of his mother, Joan "The Fair Maid of Kent", heiress of Edmund of Woodstock...

 is a pub (modelled on the White Horse, New Fetter Lane, just north of Fleet Street

Fleet Street

Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...

, once the weekly rendezvous of science fiction fans in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

) where a character named Harry Purvis tells a series of tall tale

Tall tale

A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories such as, "that fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely...

s. Incidental characters inhabiting the White Hart include science fiction writers Samuel Youd

Samuel Youd

Samuel Youd is a British author, best known for his science fiction writings under the pseudonym John Christopher, including the novel The Death of Grass and the young adult oriented novel series The Tripods...

 (aka John Christopher), John Wyndham

John Wyndham

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer who usually used the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes...

 aka John Beynon, and Clarke himself in addition to the narrative voice as his pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Charles Willis.

The style and nature of the stories was inspired by the Jorkens stories of the writer Lord Dunsany, whom Clarke admired and with whom he corresponded, a fact humorously acknowledged by Clarke in his introduction to the first Jorkens omnibus volume.

According to Clarke's preface to the book, the book was his third collection of short stories, which were written between 1953 and 1957 in such diverse spots as New York, Miami, Colombo, London and Sydney.

One additional story from the White Hart 'universe', "Let there be light", is reprinted in Tales of Ten Worlds.

Contents

This collection, originally published in paperback in 1957 by Ballantine Books, includes:

• Preface
• "Silence Please"
• "Big Game Hunt"
• "Patent Pending"
• "Armaments Race"
• "Critical Mass"
• "The Ultimate Melody"
• "The Pacifist"
• "The Next Tenants"
• "Moving Spirit"
• "The Man Who Ploughed the Sea"
• "The Reluctant Orchid"
• "Cold War"
• "What Goes Up"
• "Sleeping Beauty"
• "The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch"

Reception

Galaxy

Galaxy Science Fiction

Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...

reviewer Floyd C. Gale praised the collection as "as light and frothy conglomeration of sidesplitters as it has been my good fortune to read."