The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter

Abstract

Both the book and the circumstances here are unusual. The book is unusual because it begins with a statement by an Alphonse de Castro that he was the author of the original The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter under the name of G.A.Danziger. He recounts the story of its publication history, including Bierce's role. Nothing is said about how Bierce's Fantastic Fables come to accompany this short work in this book. I found the book in a small used bookstore after the Skunk train had reached its terminus and before we drove back in a cab to the train's starting point. This collection seems to contain, at its end, a number of stories not included in the Dover reprint of the 1898 original. The earlier stories are in an order only roughly approximating Dover's order. I suspect that some individual fables were dropped in either or both editions. Furthermore, some names are at least slightly different; thus The Poetess of Reform in Dover is The Poet of Reform in Cape, and Life-Savers loses its final s in the latter. Is it only a typo that changes A Racial Parallel in Dover to A Radical Parallel in Cape? (Actually, both titles fit this good anecdote!) No T of C for the fables, which are on 117-264.