Tales of Pain and Wonder is Caitlin R. Kiernan

Caitlin R. Kiernan

Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan is the author of many science fiction and dark fantasy works, including seven novels, many comic books, more than one hundred published short stories, novellas, and vignettes, and numerous scientific papers.- Overview :Born in Dublin, Ireland, she moved to the United States...

's first short-story collection. The stories are interconnected to varying degrees, and a number of Kiernan's characters reappear throughout the book, particularly Jimmy DeSade and Salmagundi Desvernine. The stories run the gamut from dark fantasy

Dark fantasy

Dark fantasy is a term used to describe a fantasy story with a pronounced horror element.-Overview:A strict definition for dark fantasy is difficult to pin down. Gertrude Barrows Bennett has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". Both Charles L...

 ("Rats Live on No Evil Star" and "Estate") to ghost stories

Ghost story

A ghost story may be any piece of fiction, or drama, or an account of an experience, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them. Colloquially, the term can refer to any kind of scary story. In a narrower sense, the ghost story has...

 and supernatural horror fiction

Horror fiction

Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

 ("Angels You Can See Through" and "Anamorphosis") to Noir fiction ("Breakfast in the House of the Rising Sun" and "Lafayette"). A number of the stories have a decidedly H. P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

ian flavor and the influence of Charles Fort

Charles Fort

Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...

, as does much of Kiernan's fiction published since Tales of Pain and Wonder. The stories are also united by a theme of cultural decay and loss of meaning in 20th-Century society, as expressed by the collection's epilogue, Kiernan's only published poem, "Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald , born Zelda Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama, was an American novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper"...

 in Ballet Attire." Originally published in 2000 as an expensive limited-edition hardback by Gauntlet Publishing, it was reissued in trade paperback format in 2002 by Meisha Merlin Publishing

Meisha Merlin Publishing

Meisha Merlin Publishing was an independent publishing company founded in 1996 by former New York book editor Stephen Pagel and Kevin and Brian Murphy...

. In 2008, Subterranean Press

Subterranean Press

Subterranean Press is a small press publisher in Michigan. Subterranean is best known for publishing genre fiction, primarily horror, suspense and dark mystery, fantasy, and science fiction...

 re-issued the book again, in a limited edition hardcover, with a new author's introduction and two new stories, "Mercury," and "Salammbô Redux," and omitting the story "Angels You Can See Through." All three editions include artwork by Canadian illustrator Richard A. Kirk

Richard A. Kirk

Richard A. Kirk is an artist currently residing in Canada. Kirk works as a visual artist and illustrator. His art work is centered on images that explore the liminal space between imagination and reality; a pictorial space where a personal iconography manifests in protean forms that challenge...

, as well as an introduction by anthologist/novelist Douglas E. Winter and an afterword by novelist Peter Straub

Peter Straub

Peter Francis Straub is an American author and poet, most famous for his work in the horror genre. His horror fiction has received numerous literary honors such as the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award, and International Horror Guild Award, placing him among the most-honored horror authors in...

.

Contents

†	Not included in the third edition
‡	Appears in the third edition only

• Introduction: Pain, Wonder, and Caitlin R. Kiernan (Douglas E. Winter)
• "Anamorphosis
  Anamorphosis
  Anamorphosis or anamorphism may refer to any of the following:*Anamorphosis, in art, the representation of an object as seen, for instance, altered by reflection in a mirror...
  
  "
• "To This Water (Johnstown, Pennsylvania 1889)"
• "Bela's Plot"
• "Tears Seven Times Salt"
• "Superheroes"
• "Glass Coffin"
• "Breakfast in the House of the Rising Sun"
• "Estate"
• "The Last Child or Lir"
• "A Story for Edward Gorey
  Edward Gorey
  Edward St. John Gorey was an American writer and artist noted for his macabre illustrated books.-Early life:...
  
  "
• "Paedomorphosis"
• "Salammbô"
• "Postcards from the King of Tides"
• "Rats Live on No Evil Star"
• "Salmagundi"
• "In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888)"
• "The Long Hall on the Top Floor"
• "San Andreas"
• "Angels You Can See Through" ^†
• "Mercury" ^‡
• "Lafayette"
• "...Between the Gargoyle Trees"
• "Salammbô Redux" ^‡
• Epilogue: "Zelda Fitzgerald in Ballet Attire"
• Afterword (Peter Straub)

Editions

• ISBN 1-887368-26-4 (hardback, 2000)
• ISBN 1-892065-38-X (trade paperback, 2002)