3.5/5
3 ⭐ The Invisible Man
A medical student, turned physics student, in London, is intrigued with the properties of light. Studiously working for years in the student lab, burning the midnight oil so that none disturb him, he discovers the means to make flesh and blood invisible. First trying it on a cat with success, he then tries it on himself. But what he thought would be a boon soon proves to be his bane. Because it's winter, so he must go about naked to be unseen, and it's bitterly cold, raining and/or snowing. His glee at succeeding turns to murderous hatred for his fellow man, for standing in the way of his desires to take what he wants, wherever he goes.
His description of his breakthrough:
" 'but I went to work - like a slave. And I had hardly worked and thought about the matter 6 months before light came through one of the meshes suddenly - blindingly! I found a general principle of pigments and refraction, - a formula, a geometrical expression involving four dimensions. fools, common men, even common mathematicians, do not know anything of what some general expression May mean to the student of molecular physics. In the books - the books that Tramp has hidden - there are marvels, miracles! But this was not a method, it was an idea, that might lead to a method by which it would be possible, without changing any other property of matter, - except, in some instances, colours,-- to lower the refractive index of a substance, solid or liquid, to that of air - so far as all practical purposes are concerned.' "

The undoing of his invisibility:
"Suddenly an old woman, peering Under the arm of the big navvy, screamed sharply. 'looky there!' she said, and thrust out a wrinkled finger.
and looking where she pointed, everyone saw, faint and transparent as though it was made of glass, so that veins and arteries and bones and nerves could be distinguished, the outline of a hand, a hand limp and prone. It grew clouded and opaque even as they stared.
'hullo!' cried the constable. 'here's his feet a-showing!'
and so, slowly, beginning at his hands and feet and creeping along his limbs to the vital centres of his body, that strange change continued. it was like the slow spreading of a poison. First came the little white nerves, a hazy gray sketch of a limb, then the glassy bones and intricate arteries, then the flesh and skin, first a faint fogginess, and then growing rapidly dense and opaque. Presently they could see his crushed chest and his shoulders, and the dim outline of his drawn and battered features."

4 ⭐ The Crystal Egg
I loved this story. The elderly owner of an antique shop in London has in his inventory a crystal egg. Mr Cave also has a wife, younger than him, and two step-children who, along with their mother, don't respect Mr Cave. This egg, Mr Cave discovered, when in a dark room and when a pinpoint of light penetrated it at a certain angle, disclosed a view of a little valley, with two cliffs along either edge, buildings, trees, a little river running through the middle, and remarkable inhabitants of definitely non-human types.
The ending is very sad.

2 ⭐ The Man Who Could Work Miracles
Meh

4 ⭐ The Plattner Story
A Modern Languages Master, in a private school in Sussexville, whose precocious student finds and passes on to him a packet of green powder, tries various experiments on it in Chemistry class, on trying a match on it, causes an explosion and disappears. The students and Headmaster assume he has been "blown to atoms," but nah. He is blown into an Outer World, where all his organs, and his hands, are reversed in position, and remain that way when he manages to get back to our world.
An excerpt from it intrigued me, something to do with my personal experience:
"What are they - these Watchers of the Living? Plattner never learned. but two, that presently found and followed him, were like his childhood memory of his father and mother. Now and then other faces turned their eyes upon him: eyes like those of dead people who had swayed him, or injured him, or helped him in his youth and manhood. whenever they looked at him, plattner was overcome with a strange sense of responsibility. To his mother he ventured to speak; but she made no answer. She looked sadly, steadfastly, and tenderly - a little reproachfully, too, it seemed - into his eyes."

3 ⭐ The Strange Orchid
A man who is an orchid fancier buys several orchids rescued from a deceased man who had an orchid collection in Malaysia. Several of them don't survive, but one of them begins to thrive. However, it turns out to be a vampire orchid. The orchid has attacked the man, and is busily sucking his blood, when his housekeeper, finding he is late for his tea, discovers him passed out in his greenhouse. Of all the things they could use to revive him, listen to what they give him:
"Wedderburn had lost a good deal of blood, but beyond that he had suffered no very great injury. They gave him Brandy mixed with some pink extract of meat, and carried him upstairs to bed. His housekeeper told her incredible story in fragments to Dr haden. 'come to the orchid-House and see,' she said."
"Pink extract of meat" You mean blood? Lol

4 ⭐ The New Accelerator
Looking for stories about drugs that speed you up or change time for you, i found this story, and thus, this book. (I read a story once about a drug that slowed you down, or speeded you up, i can't remember. It took place in a jungle, and it was fascinating, because the protagonist was studying the prolific plants in the jungle setting, growing, as the person was under the influence of the drug. Alas, this was not it.)
This was a good one, though I would have liked the author to expand upon their experiences with the Accelerator.

3 ⭐ The Diamond Maker
What are diamonds? Artificially bumped-up lumps of coal, skillfully marketed to make them seem precious. Mined by poor, exploited humans to make wealth for their heartless bosses.
In this sad story, a man studies, researches for two decades on the making of diamonds...and is successful. But think of the problems with trying to sell them. Nobody will believe you.

2 ⭐ The Apple
Meh

2 ⭐ The Purple Pileus
Funny story about a bad marriage and some purple fungus.

4 ⭐ A Dream of Armageddon
Strange story of two men in a compartment on a train traveling to London. One man is recounting to the other his story of the end of the world. He dreamed a consecutive dream, and he felt sure that his dreaming world was the real one. He had left his hard, political life, to go with his young mistress to the isle of Capri, to live a life of love and pleasure. But leaving his post of power left the way open for his mad employee to turn the world to war. Insisting on continuing his life of love and leisure, he refused to go back and reassume his old yolk, even though his mistress begged him to leave her. They ran from the war that came to their paradise, but two warring sides hemmed them in, and she was shot. He was killed with a sword run through him. And then their were the carrion birds.
Now, in his waking life, he feels sure that this life is the dream.
A lot of parable in this little story for us, the reader, to learn from and heed, if we would.

4 ⭐ Aepyornis Island
This is an amazing tale of a prehistoric bird--the elephant bird of Madagascar, that went extinct ~1000 AD. Too sad, like the dodo. ( )