Great Psychological Stories - Edited by Laurette Naomi Pizer

Cover shown is the 1967 first edition paperback from Panther Books (UK). Cover photograph by Lester Waldman. 155 pages.

This collection features eight stories by D. H. Lawrence, Colette, Henry James, Willa Cather, Vladimir Nabokov, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Ivan Bunin and Ryunosuke Akutagawa.

I was quite disappointed with the majority of these stories. Described as "eight voyages into unexplored regions of the mind by some of the most imaginative writers of the century", I instead found eight stories that - in most parts - plodded along at best.

Nabokov's "That in Aleppo Once..." was the highlight, telling the amusing story of a man's short lived marriage to a woman with decidedly strange mental processes. Lawrence's "Mother and Daughter" had its interesting parts, but his description of an abnormally close mother/daughter relationship did not quite ring true to me.