Read More Joan Aiken collections from Small Beer Press: The Monkey’s Wedding

“Hair” was a Shirley Jackson Award finalist and reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror.

“It’s always the children’s book writers that you have to watch out for.”

—Jessa Crispin, Kirkus Reviews

“Part of a storytelling tradition that predates MFA programs and quiet epiphanies, and she concerned herself with a snappier brand of narrative entertainment.”—Review of Contemporary Fiction

Joan Aiken’s stories captivated readers for fifty years. They’re funny, smart, gentle, and occasionally very, very scary. The stories in The Monkey’s Wedding are collected here for the very first time and include seven never before published, as well as two published under the pseudonym Nicholas Dee. Here you’ll find the story of a village for sale . . . or is the village itself the story? There’s an English vicar who declares on his deathbed that he might have lived an entirely different life. After his death, a large, black, argumentative cat makes an appearance. . . .

  This hugely imaginative collection of incongruous, light, and unexpected stories features Shelley Jackson’s spooky and eyecatching cover painting inspired by the story “A Mermaid Too Many” and includes introductions by Joan Aiken as well by her daughter, Lizza Aiken.

trade cloth · $24 · 9781931520744 | ebook · 9781618730268