The Book of Wonder is one of Lord Dunsany’s many collections of fantasy short stories. While many of his collections were illustrated, this particular one is different—the illustrations were completed first . Dunsany then used the illustrations as inspirations for the stories around them.

This collection features fourteen short stories, all of them whimsical, imaginative, and deeply strange. Dunsany writes stories that don’t always have a happy ending, and these are no exception—though they’re written in an almost fairytale or allegorical style, they each have a melancholy, vengeful, or even mad edge to them.