**Tor Essentials presents science fiction and fantasy titles of proven
merit and lasting value, each volume introduced by an appropriate
literary figure.
**
Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, a
winner of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, Raphael
Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was an American original, a teller of
acute, indescribably loopy tall tales whose work has been compared to
that of Avram Davidson, Flannery O'Connor, Flann O'Brien, and Gene
Wolfe.
The Best of R. A. Lafferty presents 22 of his best flights of offbeat
imagination, ranging from classics like "Nine Hundred Grandmothers" and
"The Primary Education of the Cameroi" to his Hugo Award-winning
"Eurema's Dam."
Introduced by Neil Gaiman, the volume also contains story introductions
and afterwords by, among many others, Michael Dirda, Samuel R. Delany,
John Scalzi, Connie Willis, Jeff VanderMeer, Kelly Robson, Harlan
Ellison, Michael Swanwick, Robert Silverberg, Neil Gaiman, and Patton
Oswalt.