Anthologies

Hanging by a Thread

Information   Description   Teacher Resources   Cover Illustration

Information

• First edition:
  • Houghton Mifflin, 1969, U.S.A.
    • Edited by Joan Kahn
    • Foreword by Ogden Nash
    • Long introduction by Eudora Welty
• Contains:
  • "The Way Up to Heaven"

Description

Once again Joan Kahn offers a sly arrangement of surprises and shocks... a brilliant juxtaposition of new, famous and all but forgotten writers who will have the reader hanging by a thread. Fact or fiction, each piece makes the reader care very much about what is going to happen next. In the realm of Fact, you'll find the first New York City murder to make the headlines, notes on how Emperor Nero disposed of his mother, and pieces by two of the world's best true crime reporters, William Roughearl (reporting on a remarkably wicked old man) and Edmund Pearson (reporting on a small spinster who loved unwisely). In Fiction, be prepared to be haunted by Bulwer-Lytton and terrified by H. G. Wells, to be puzzled by Charlotte Armstrong, to discover one of the earliest examples of the locked-room mystery, to meet Wilkie Collins' enchanting detective Mr. Dark, to investigate with Dashiell Hammett the strange disappearance of two young girls, and to share a shudder with Dylan Thomas, Lord Dunsany and nineteen other writers. Whether you read this book straight through or dip into it at random, you will not be able to lay it aside for long. It is wide-ranging and varied, a highly personal selection by the well-known editor of suspense books – especially designed to chill, to intrigue and to entertain you.

Teacher Resources

• "The Way Up to Heaven"
  • Classroom Activities
    • Includes a number of questions and exercises pertaining to the story

Cover Illustration

Click on thumbnail to see the full–size version...

Houghton Mifflin, 1969