Peter S. Beagle is "the class act of fantasy writing," according to Booklist contributor John Mort. A writer whose highly regarded fantasy fiction has wrought comparisons to J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Malory, and Lewis Carroll, Beagle hit the ground running as a young writer. His A Fine and Private Place, published by a mainstream rather than genre publisher in 1960, won praise from equally mainstream critics. His popular 1968 title, The Last Unicorn, "is a benchmark of contemporary mythic fantasy," according to a Publishers Weekly critic.

Beagle's enduring popularity began before the floodgates of literary fantasy opened in the 1970s and 1980s. He is, as William H. Archer of Best Sellers noted, "a writer whose work speaks so eloquently [that he] needs no comparison." Similar accolades have been garnered on the basis of Beagle's relatively small body of work: several novels and novellas, as well as...