Like its companion volume The Young Magicians, this is a sampler of the works of some of the good, very good, and excellent writers who have worked in the filed of "adult fantasy" over the past ten to fifteen decades. As with the other collection, the quality is various but on average quite high. Among the better writers sampled herein are Poe, MacDonald, Wilde, Dunsany. and Peake; many others would include with them Smith, Lovecraft, and Howard; and none of the rest are actually contemptible. If you're giving a friend a first volume of introduction to the field, make it The Young magicians; but give him or her this very next.