SOURCE: "Unlike Other Tales," in The Saturday Review of Literature, Vol. XXXIV, No. 51, December 22, 1951, p. 16.

In the following review of Fancies and Goodnights, Davenport identifies the fine line Collier draws between the macabre and the funny, concluding that he "remains the master of an irony so perfectly balanced that his horror is hardly ever quite free of humor, nor his humor of horror. "

If you have read any of John Collier's stories, then all I need to do is tell you that [Fancies and Goodnights] contains fifty of them—the entire contents (one story excepted) of his out-of-print and eagerly sought-after collections, Presenting Moonshine and The Touch of Nutmeg; and in addition there are among the fifty (like the seventeen of Priam's fifty sons who were sons of Hecuba) seventeen stories never before published in book form. But if you haven't read any of John Collier, then the...