[STARRED REVIEW] "There is a sense of frivolity and freedom that permits this anthology to "elude the mundane, and to achieve... beauty and exaltation."

The secret is finally out. Fantasy is more than just sword-and-sorcery novels of epic adventures. Here are innovative tales where mythology, fairy tales, and archetypes are reimagined into a new style of storytelling.

Anthologist Peter S. Beagle knows fantasy. The author of the inventive fantasy novel The Last Unicorn and the introduction to The Lord of the Rings now introduces the gifted writers that returned to the classics and thoroughly redefined the genre: Gregory Maguire, Francesca Lia Block, Robert Holdstock, Patricia McKillip, and Steven Millhauser, and others who have lead the way to expanding imaginative frontiers.

From the depths of a dangerous English forest to the top of the Tower of Babel, on a caffeinated journey to the empire of ice cream, discover The Secret History of Fantasy.