The October Country

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The October Country cover

The October Country (1955) is a collection of twenty macabre short stories by Ray Bradbury. It reprints fifteen of the twenty-seven stories of his 1947 collection Dark Carnival, and adds four more of his stories published elsewhere.

The stories:

• "The Dwarf"

The owner of a Hall of Mirrors and a young carnival-goer observe a dwarf who uses the mirrors to make himself seem taller.

• "The Next in Line"

A couple staying in a small Mexican town comes across a cemetery which holds a shocking policy regarding families of the interred which cannot pay.

• "The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse"

A thoroughly dull man becomes the new avant garde craze precisely because he is boring.

• "Skeleton"

A man becomes convinced his skeleton is out to ruin him, and consults an unorthodox specialist.

• "The Jar"
• "The Lake"

A man revisits his childhood home and recalls a friend who drowned in a lake during childhood.

• "The Emissary"
• "Touched With Fire"

Two old men make it their mission to push fulfillment on unhappy people. They unsucessfully try to do with a woman whose story ends bloodily. It was first published under the title "Shopping for Death".

• "The Small Assassin"

A woman becomes convinced her newborn baby is out to kill her.

• "The Crowd"

A man discovers something odd about the crowds which form around accidents.

• "Jack-in-the-Box"

A boy lives with his mother in a vast secluded mansion, her raising him to be God after telling him his father, the original God, was killed by beasts outside.

• "The Scythe"

A man comes into possession of a powerful scythe and a wheat field. He discovers the scythe is a tool of death, and each piece of wheat is a person's life.

• "Uncle Einar"

One of two stories in this collection to feature members of the Elliot family, a collection of movie monsters and immortal beings. This story focuses on a character named Uncle Einar, who tries to find a way into the skies after damaging his wings.

• "The Wind"

A former travel writer becomes mortally afraid that the winds he has defied around the world are gathering to kill him.

• "The Man Upstairs"

A young boy suspects the man renting the upper room of his house to be more than a man.

• "There Was an Old Woman"
• "The Cistern"
• "Homecoming"

The main story concerning the Elliot family. It concerns their return to the ancestral home for a gathering, and is seen through the eyes of Timothy, a mortal child left on their doorstep who longs to be like them. Einar from Uncle Einar figures prominently. It formed the basis for the 2001 book "From the Dust Returned".

• "The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone"

Fans track down a writer who chose to withdraw into seclusion and cease writing, and get his story from him.