The Other Place and Other Stories by J.B. Priestley

Those who broke out of the “mould” of the rest, even as they share the same themes Wells, who is in fact referenced in the text itself.Īs the concept behind these stories is, they sometimes suffer from a certain “sameness”Īnd, possibly for this reason, some of the most pieces I found memorable were Tale with elements of time-travel, but it is more in the line of the scienceįiction of H.G. Priestley included Mr Stenberry’s Tale in this volume, because “although it was written years before the others…it seems to me to They meet the mysteriously alluring Sir Edward and his beautiful niece Julia,Īnd in the process, go through a process of self-discovery. Sequence, an unhappy young couple spend the night in a strange house, where (Priestley explores a similar idea in his novel Brightĭay, which is also soon to be reissued by Valancourt). This gives the author the opportunity toĬompare the two worlds, as well as to indulge in some humour provided by theĪnachronistic situation. Which would soon be altered by the First World War. Or anthropology students visit the Edwardian Era and briefly experience a world Look After the Strange Girl, two sociology What he would later term “Admass”, the combination of mass culture and materialism Led by self-serving and self-satisfied politicians, and its capitulation to Serves to express Priestley’s concern about the sorry state of the post-war society, The ideas of Russian philosopher Ouspensky, whom Priestley was reading when writing In time, glimpse different eras or pass through moments of heightened lucidityīaxendale explains that the “time-warp” idea is probably influenced by Most of them involve situations where theįabric of time and perceived reality wears thin, allowing characters to travel

The stories share some common themes and plot devices. John Baxendale points out in the introduction to this Valancourt Books edition, They are not ghost stories, nor do they comfortably fit under the wider They are works of speculative fiction, but Immediately conveys the fact that these stories are hard to categorize.

The phrase “of the same sort” is telling, and Strenberry’s Tale”, dating from the summer of First published in 1953 and features eight stories written around that time, as

The Other Place and Other Stories by J.B. Priestley