Thursday, June 6, 2013

Richard Matheson - The Original Stories: The Anthologies and Collections

by John Scoleri

Here it is—the long delayed, final installment in this series documenting Richard Matheson's original short story appearances. Please note that in the time since they were originally written, previous installments have been updated as I have filled in the last few holes in my collection. These prior installments covered Richard Matheson's short fiction appearances in Playboy, the Sci-Fi Pulps, the Mystery Digests, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Gauntlet Chapbooks, the first, second, third and fourth groups of Science Fiction Digests, The Twilight Zone and other contemporary magazines, slicks, and mystery, horror and western pulps. With the final installment, we look at Matheson's appearances in original anthologies and stories that debuted in his own collections.

The Original Stories: The Anthologies and Collections

Of the numerous appearances Matheson's stories have made in anthologies through the years, only 14 tales were original to the following publications. Additionally, dating back as far as Shock Waves (1970), Matheson used collections of his stories to debut previously unpublished fiction.

"Dear Diary"
Born of Man and Woman
Introduction by Robert Bloch
Chamberlain, 1954

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Third From The Sun, Collected Stories TP v2

From Robert Bloch's introduction:
"Dear Diary," in a few short pages, utilizes this ability to adopt another's viewpoint and deftly encapsulate a volume of psycho-sociological commentary; a feat of compression apparently denied the current school of 'realistic' writers who must perforce drag their readers for hundreds of pages through a neon wilderness in order to even hint at what Matheson reveals in less than 1,500 words.


"The Traveller"
Born of Man and Woman
Introduction by Robert Bloch
Chamberlain, 1954

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Third From The Sun, Collected Stories TP v2

From Robert Bloch's introduction:
'Genuine' is probably a key word to remember in dealing with his work. It's the absolute honesty that comes through and makes his stories memorable. A theme generally considered 'taboo' takes on stature and significance in the hands of a creative artist, and Matheson has worked with such themes not once but a number of times. Always the result is a tale that transcends the routine products of the genre. "The Traveller" is such a story. It is my belief that the average reader will either ecstatically embrace or violently reject it—but it is my further belief that no reader will ever forget this tale.

Notes: This is another of Matheson's Fort College stories.


"Dance of the Dead"
STAR Science Fiction Stories No. 3
edited by Frederik Pohl
Ballantine, January 1955

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Shock!, I Am Legend & Others, Collected Stories TP v2


Editorial Comment:
On one day the world of science fiction was as ignorant of the name "Richard Matheson" as of the name of the owner of your corner delicatessen; on the next name ranked in the same rarefied levels of most of the contributors to this volume. What worked the change? It was a simple-enough event; it was the publication of an issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, outwardly no different from any other issue of that very good magazine, but internally distinguished by a story called "Born of Man and Woman." That was Richard Matheson's first, and it was a scary, creepy beauty. And let no man tell you he has since lost the knack; for the proof that he has it still is—"The Dance of the Dead."

Notes: Richard Christian Matheson adapted his father's "Dance of the Dead" for an episode of Masters of Horror directed by Tobe Hooper.


"A Touch of Grapefruit"
STAR Science Fiction Stories No. 5
edited by Frederik Pohl
Ballantine, 1959

Subsequent appearances (as "The Creeping Terror"): Collected Stories HC, Shock!, Button, Button, Collected Stories TP v3


Editorial Comment:
Richard Matheson burst like a bright exhalation on the evening with his first published story—a lovely, chilly midget of a yarn called "Born of Man and Woman." Since then the books have poured out, The Incredible Shrinking Man made motion picture history, the magazines have been studded with his work. Here is his latest—presenting another facet of Richard Matheson's work, and one you will enjoy.

Notes: This is the only appearance of this story under this title. It was subsequently reprinted as "The Creeping Terror." In Collected Stories TP v3, Matheson told Wiater that "The Creeping Terror" was his original title, "because I wanted it to sound like an honest to God horror story—when it wasn't at all."


"Mantage"
Science Fiction Showcase
edited by Mary Kornbluth
Doubleday & Company, 1959

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Shock!, The Shrinking Man & Others, Collected Stories TP v3

Notes: As noted in the dedication by Frederik Pohl, this book was a tribute to C.M. Kornbluth, with stories by the late author's friends.


"The Likeness of Julie" as by Logan Swanson
Alone by Night
edited by Michael and Don Congdon
Ballantine, 1961
Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Shock II, Collected Stories TP v3

Notes: This anthology, edited by Matheson's longtime agent Don Congdon, marked the second time Matheson employed his Logan Swanson pseudonym to obscure the fact that he was making two appearances in a single publication (the prior being the March 1957 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine). Of course it was only obscured to those who didn't bother to read the copyright page, which listed Swanson as the author and the copyright attributed to Matheson.  The story was adapted by William Nolan for Dan Curtis' anthology film Trilogy of Terror, remembered most fondly for Matheson's own adaptation of his short story "Prey."


"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"
Alone by Night
edited by Michael and Don Congdon
Ballantine, 1961

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Shock III, The Shrinking Man & Others, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories, Collected Stories TP v3, Richard Matheson's Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

Notes: Perhaps Richard Matheson's most famous story, thanks to his adaptation for the fifth season of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. He also provided the adaptation for Twilight Zone: The Movie.



"Finger Prints"
The Fiend in You
edited by Charles Beaumont (and William F. Nolan, uncredited)
Ballantine, 1962

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Shock Waves, Collected Stories TP v3


Editorial Comment:
Some stories are written; others happen. This one happened, and there was nothing Richard Matheson could do about it, though he would have liked to, I'm sure. It couldn't have been a very pleasant experience, watching this nightmare uncoil before his eyes. It can't be a very pleasant experience for you, either. Yet, as you draw back in disgust, as you certainly will, reflect: what are you drawing back from? Why, like the nice intelligent narrator, are you feeling something so much deeper than shame, so much colder than fright?

Notes: The first of two Matheson stories in the volume edited by his colleagues. Apparently, by 1962 the presence of two Richard Matheson stories in a single publication was deemed acceptable, if not desirable.


"Mute"
The Fiend in You
 edited by Charles Beaumont (and William F. Nolan, uncredited)
Ballantine, 1962

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Shock II, Button, Button, Collected Stories TP v3


Editorial Comment:
The theme of the Strange Child is not new to literature. What is new is Richard Matheson's treatment of the theme. For somehow, in "Mute," he has managed to make of his Child's condition a thing neither fearful nor pitiable but, instead, highly desirable. Indeed, the boy Paal may be the only 'normal' person in the story...

Notes: The second of his two stories in this anthology, "Mute" was adapted by Matheson for the fourth season of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone.


"The Finishing Touches"
Shock Waves
Dell, 1970

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, Collected Stories TP v3

Notes: In Collected Stories TP v3, Matheson told Wiater that he he was unable to sell this story as it was not clearly supernatural or straight crime.


"Come Fygures, Come Shadowes"
Shock Waves
Dell, 1970

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


Author's Introduction:
This is the opening of a novel I am presently at work on. The project I have in mind is to present in one novel or, if necessary, a series of novels (probably a trilogy) a total and (hopefully) in-depth study of the phenomena of extrasensory perception and/or mediumship from its most naively primitive aspects through its areas of unfortunate fraudulences to, finally, a scientific analysis of its (to me) unrefuted validities, all presented through separate accounts of the involvements of each of the three Nielsen children in the phenomena.

Notes: Come Fygures, Come Shadowes, the novel, was finally published in 2003 by Gauntlet as a signed hardcover. In an afterword to that edition, Matheson outlines the novel he planned to write, which would have exceeded 2,000 pages had he finished it.



"Little Jack Cornered"
By the Gun
Evans, 1993

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.

Notes: This was the basis for Matheson's season 3 Lawman episode, "Cornered."


"Of Death and Thirty Minutes"
By the Gun
Evans, 1993

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.

Notes: This was the basis for Matheson's season 2 Lawman episode, "Thirty Minutes."


"Where There's A Will" with Richard Christian Matheson
Dark Forces
edited by Kirby McCauley
Viking, 1980

Subsequent appearances: Matheson Uncollected Vol. 2, Uncollected: Backteria and Other Improbable Tales


Editorial Comment:
It's not unusual for a son to follow in the writing footsteps of his father, but it's uncommon for the two to collaborate. Here is a rare and fortunate exception. Richard Matheson is a successful Hollywood screenwriter, author of many classic throat-gripping short stories and novels of terror—"Duel," "Prey," A Stir of Echoes, The Shrinking Man, I Am Legend—as well as one of the key writers to work with the late Rod Serling on the famous Twilight Zone television series. His son, Richard Christian Matheson, still in his mid-twenties, has already sold a number of short stories to magazines and anthologies and has begun a career in television scripting. He shows promise of making a strong mark of his own. Their combined talents concentrate here on the claustrophobic aspects of terror.


"The Near Departed"
Masques II
edited by J.N. Williamson
Maclay, 1987

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, I Am Legend & Others, Collected Stories TP v3


Editorial Comment:
     Few fantasists have written more Americandescently than R. Matheson, Esq. He was one of the first to place his darker speculations in surroundings not, I think, unlike your own. Because of this and the fact that his tales customarily are set now, his surgical introduction of the unexpected involves almost any reader from the outset. 
     Dick Matheson has never been surpassed in the uses of identifiable terror. It emerges through dialogue that rises like reality from a printed page. The author of The Shrinking Man, "Duel," "The Test," What Dreams May Come, "Being," Bid Time Return, and "Prey," won, in 1984, the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. Maybe they should have retired it.
     With a glittering jewel of a Richard Matheson short-short you've never read before looming ahead, what more needs to be said?

"Buried Talents"
Masques II
edited by J.N. Williamson
Maclay, 1987

Subsequent appearances: Collected Stories HC, I Am Legend & Others, Collected Stories TP v3


Editorial Comment:
     In He Is Legend, a tribute to Dick Matheson "compiled by Mark Rathbun and Graeme Flanagan," it was the former who quoted the writer of I Am Legend, Hell House and the Shock series as saying he is "very easily dissuaded" from finishing work in progress. "...One or two people will turn it down, and I give up on it..." Such a waste.
     Ray Bradbury says, in Rathbun and Flanagan's charming brochure, "Richard Matheson is worth our time, attention and great affection," while Robert Bloch asserts Matheson "has enriched us all."
     He continues to do so in the tale ahead, a strangely unsettling, original work you won't soon forget. Its protagonist continues the sports theme to its diabolic limit"

Notes: In Collected Stories TP v3, Matheson told Wiater that he attempted to sell the story to Harlan Ellison for one of his anthologies (I assume one of the Dangerous Visions volumes - J.S.), but that Ellison hated it.



"Two O'Clock Session"
The Bradbury Chronicles
edited by William F. Nolan and Martin H. Greenberg
ROC, 1991

Subsequent appearances: Off Beat


Editorial Comment:
     Not many fantasy writers become legends in their own time, but Richard Matheson certainly lives up to the title of his published biography, He Is Legend. Of course, this title honors one of the author's best known science fiction/horror novels, I Am Legend, a long-established classic.
     Matheson's award-winning 900 page collection, Collected Stories, issued in 1989, contains 86 of his 100-plus shorter fictional works. He has published another 10 novels, including The Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes and Bid Time Return. Additionally, he has written more than 80 scripts for television, many for Rod Serling's Twilight Zone, plus individual TV films such as Duel, The Night Stalker, and his recent (1990) Dreamer of Oz. Also to his credit, some 20 feature films, headed by The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Legend of Hell House, and Somewhere in Time.
     In 1950, Richard Matheson's first printed story, "Born of Man and Woman," earned him immediate recognition, and he hasn't slowed down since. 
     Ray Bradbury was an early admitted influence. The story Matheson has written for The Bradbury Chronicles (dealing with the right of passage beyond death) subtly echoes "The April Witch," wherein Bradbury's Cecy sends her mind soaring out into other bodies.
     This one will stick like a burr in your memory.

Notes: In his afterword to Off Beat, Matheson indicates that the well intentioned homages were unlikely to equal any of Bradbury's own writings.


"Always Before Your Voice"
California Sorcery
 edited by William F. Nolan and William Schafer
Cemetery Dance, 1999

Subsequent appearances: Off Beat


Editorial Comment:
     Richard Matheson was born in New Jersey and raised in Brooklyn. He served as an infantry soldier in the Second World War (resulting in his vivid combat novel, The Beardless Warriors), and took his Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri in 1949. He moved to California, got married (Rich and Ruth now have four children), and went to work for Douglas Aircraft. 
     Matheson was a founding member of the Group back in the early 1950s when we were aware of any such title. I met my future wife at a Matheson screen showing of a Poe film he'd scripted.
     Rich has had seven of his seventeen novels filmed, the most notable being The Incredible Shrinking Man, an SF classic that can still be viewed on late-night television. Most recently, in 1998, Robin Williams starred in Matheson's What Dreams May Come. He's written well over 125 scripts for film and TV (including Duel, which launched the career of Steven Spielberg), and more than 100 short stories. 
     When asked to contribute a new tale for this book, Rich declared: "Sorry, but I don't write short fiction anymore. Not since 1970." Then what about one from his files that never sold?
     Well yes, he did have a story he'd always liked, a character study that had failed to find a market. "I wrote it in 1954 when I was working on The Shrinking Man  in a rented house on Long Island. [The film sale of this novel brought Matheson and his family back to California.] It will be nice to see the story published at last." 
     We think so too. Offbeat Matheson. A subtle "mainstream" story about frustration and desire.
     Meet Mr. Smalley and Miss Land.

Notes: Matheson expresses great pride for this straight story in his afterword to Off Beat.


"All and Only Silence"
Off Beat: Uncollected Stories
Subterranean, 2002

Subsequent appearances (as The Last Blah in the Etc): Matheson Uncollected Vol. 1, Bacteria & Other Improbable Tales.

Notes: Matheson's original title, "The Last Blah in the Etc" was changed by William F. Nolan for this collection.


"Phone Call From Across the Street"
Off Beat: Uncollected Stories
Subterranean, 2002

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.

Notes: In his afterword to Off Beat, Matheson notes that this story, written entirely in dialogue, was performed by he and William F. Nolan, and recorded at a Group meeting.


"Maybe You Remember Him"
Off Beat: Uncollected Stories
Subterranean, 2002

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.

Notes: This is Matheson's sole baseball story.


"Mirror, Mirror..."
Off Beat: Uncollected Stories
Subterranean, 2002

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"That Was Yesterday"
Off Beat: Uncollected Stories
Subterranean, 2002

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"Life Size"
Off Beat: Uncollected Stories (exclusive to 52-copy lettered edition)
Subterranean, 2002

Subsequent appearances: Gauntlet Press Sampler, Matheson Uncollected Vol. 1, Bacteria & Other Improbable Tales.


"Pride" with Richard Christian Matheson
Pride
Gauntlet, 2002


Subsequent appearances (of just Matheson's final draft): Matheson Uncollected Vol. 1, Bacteria & Other Improbable Tales.

Notes: This Gauntlet book features Matheson's first draft in longhand, a typed draft, Richard Christian Matheson's hadwritten first draft, a typed draft, and a final draft. Finally, a teleplay of the story written in collaboration with Richard Christian Matheson.


"Portrait" inspired by an illustration by Tenille Turek
Framed: A Gallery of Dark Delicacies
edited by Gomez and Morticia Howison
Dark Delicacies 2003

Subsequent appearances: Matheson Uncollected Vol.2

Notes: A horror charity book published by the owners of Dark Delicacies in Burbank, California, the concept behind framed was that several artists would create a piece of art with a framed border, or with a framed piece of art within them. The art was then randomly distributed to the authors to write a one-page interpretation of it. While Matheson's contribution was a single paragraph and a one-sentence postscript, it was perfectly fitting the artwork.


"Revolution"
Darker Places
Gauntlet, 2004

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"The Puppy"
Darker Places
Gauntlet, 2004

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"Little Girl Knocking on My Door"
Darker Places
Gauntlet, 2004

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"Cassidy's Shoes"
Darker Places
Gauntlet, 2004

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"The Hill"
Darker Places
Gauntlet, 2004

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"Intergalactic Report"
Darker Places
Gauntlet, 2004

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"Haircut"
Masques V
edited by J.N. Williamson
Borderlands, 2006

Subsequent appearances: Matheson Uncollected Vol. 2, Uncollected: Backteria and Other Improbable Tales


Editorial Comment: 
Occasionally—albeit unconsciously—I'll find that writers submitting stories to Masques will repeat certain motifs. You'll find a trio of ghost stories this time around, as well as 2 stories from legends in the field that are set in a barbershop. Here is the first, and a wickedly funny, chilling visit it is, courtesy of one of the greatest writers ever to grace this field, Richard Matheson, author of The Shrinking Man, "Duel," I Am Legend, and—oh, come on! Do I really need to introduce this towering figure of imaginative fiction?
Didn't think so...


"An Element Never Forgets"
Matheson Uncollected Vol. 2
Gauntlet, 2010

Subsequent appearances: Uncollected: Backteria and Other Improbable Tales


"Backteria"
Uncollected: Backteria and Other Improbable Tales
Gauntlet, 2013

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"My Conversation with Superman"
Uncollected: Backteria and Other Improbable Tales
Gauntlet, 2013

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.


"A Murder Story Told in Two Hundred Clichés"
Uncollected: Backteria and Other Improbable Tales
Gauntlet, 2013

Subsequent appearances: Only available in this collection.
 

"The Enemy Within"
Star Trek 8
Adapted by James Blish
Bantam, 1972

Notes: While this is just an adaptation of Matheson's teleplay by James Blish, the author is acknowledged on the title page of the story.

--

I hope you have enjoyed this series on Richard Matheson - The Original Stories, and that it will be a valuable resource as you work on completing your own collection. When this series started, I needed half a dozen items to complete my collection. As I've picked up titles that I didn't have when working on the original sections, I've gone back and updated those entries. I'm down to my final three, and I expect those three to be tough (and expensive). But rest assured, when I do get them, I'll be back to fill in the holes in this series with any additional details I can provide.

1 comment:

Jack Seabrook said...

Wow! That's a powerful amount of research. Nice job!