JGB Guide Novels Collections Stories
Non-Fiction Miscellaneous Media Books About Ballard
J G BALLARD: A COLLECTORS’ GUIDE

Back to the "Collecting J. G. Ballard" Home Page

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

I have taken the same approach to collections of Ballard's short stories as for his novels. That is, I have listed both U.K. and U.S. first editions in hardback, as well as paperback editions but only where a paperback is the first edition in any format in the relevant country. I have also listed a small number of other editions that are of particular interest.

Where a collection was first published in paperback format, it may well have been re-printed by the same publisher at a later date. Usually, the re-print will be recognizable because the artwork on the front cover will be completely different from the first printing.

For details of which stories were included in each collection, see here.


THE VOICES OF TIME AND OTHER STORIES

The first collection of Ballard's short stories, whose only publication was in a U.S. paperback edition by Berkley. There was a later reprint (1966), which had a completely different cover. Note that the title The Voices of Time was used for an entirely different U.K. collection more than two decades later.

Berkley, p/b, 1962

BILLENIUM

A second collection from Berkley in 1962, again only ever issued as a U.S. paperback.

Berkley, p/b, 1962

THE FOUR-DIMENSIONAL NIGHTMARE

The first collection published in the U.K. and one with a confusing subsequent history. The first edition was a hardback from Gollancz in 1963, and contained eight stories, of which two (including 'The Voices of Time') had appeared in the U.S. collection The Voices of Time and Other Stories. A second edition appeared from Gollancz in 1974 with two stories being changed; this later version now contained three stories in common with The Voices of Time and Other Stories. The 1974 edition was re-published by Dent in 1984 as a U.K. paperback with the same contents, but re-titled The Voices of Time, and then re-printed in hardback as The Voices of Time by Gollancz in 1985. 

The Four-Dimensional Nightmare was also published in the U.K. in a book club edition (Science Fiction Book Club, 1964) with a completely different cover.

Gollancz, 1963

Science Fiction Book Club, 1964

Gollancz, 1985

PASSPORT TO ETERNITY

A third U.S. paperback-only collection, from Berkley in 1963.

Berkley, p/b, 1963

TERMINAL BEACH

The fourth paperback collection published by Berkley in the U.S., and not to be confused with the similarly titled U.K. collection.

Berkley, p/b, 1964

THE TERMINAL BEACH

his U.K. hardback from Gollancz is a completely different collection from the Berkley paperback Terminal Beach, with which it shares only two stories. Four of Ballard's short stories had their first publication in this collection: The Delta at Sunset, The Drowned Giant, The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon, and The Volcano Dances. There was a second printing in 1965, so it's worth noting that the first printing has the code "X27" on the bottom right corner of the rear of the dust jacket.

Gollancz reissued The Terminal Beach in the mid-1980s with a completely different cover. An American edition eventually appeared in paperback from Carroll & Graf in 1987.

Gollancz, 1964

THE IMPOSSIBLE MAN AND OTHER STORIES

The fifth Berkley U.S. collection of Ballard's short stories in five years. Three short stories appeared in print for the first time in this volume: The Day of Forever, The Impossible Man, and Storm Bird, Storm Dreamer.

Berkley, p/b, 1966

THE DAY OF FOREVER

First publication was as a U.K. paperback by Panther in 1967. Panther published a second paperback edition in 1971, with a different cover and one story dropped and another story added. There was a U.K. hardback edition (which reverted to the original contents) but not until the mid-1980s when Gollancz re-issued a number of Ballard's short story collections following the success of Empire of the Sun

Panther, p/b, 1967

Gollancz, 1986

THE DISASTER AREA

A U.K. hardback collection from Cape in 1967. This is another book where the spine is particularly prone to fading. The Disaster Area was reissued by Cape in 1984 with a completely different cover.

Cape, 1967

THE OVERLOADED MAN

Another collection that appeared only as a paperback in the U.K., from Panther in 1967. There was a second printing in 1971, with a completely different front cover.

Panther, p/b, 1967

THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION

Of all Ballard's books, this one has the most complex publishing history. The component stories had been originally published in the latter half of the 1960s, mainly in magazines such as New Worlds and Ambit. The first book appearance was actually a Danish translation by Jannick Storm, with the title Grusomhedsudstillingen (Copenhagen: Rhodos, 1969). Storm had visited England in the late-1960s and translated the various pieces that were to make up The Atrocity Exhibition as they first appeared in magazines.

The first English-language publication was in the U.K. by Cape in 1970. Note that the red lettering on the spine of the dust jacket of this edition is particularly prone to fading.

The first U.S. edition was to have been by Doubleday, also in 1970, but the entire edition was destroyed just prior to publication, with the exception of a few advance review copies and file copies. Senior management at Doubleday had taken exception to the contents, which included Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan and Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy. It isn't clear exactly how many copies still survive (perhaps around a dozen), but this is certainly the rarest of Ballard's books; there was a copy for sale in 2006 by bookseller Lloyd Currey for $7,500. In addition to the fifteen stories that comprised the Cape edition, Doubleday had included drawings by Michael Foreman, a dedication 'To the insane', and an interview with Ballard by George Macbeth (which had originally been broadcast on BBC radio, and which had first appeared in print in the book The New SF, edited by Langdon Jones). Had this edition been released on its scheduled date, then it would have been the first English language publication, preceding the Cape edition by one month.  

Following the pulping of the Doubleday edition, E. P. Dutton took the book up, but eventually decided against publication after advice from their lawyers. The first U.S. publication was therefore not until 1972 when Grove Press published the book under the revised title Love & Napalm: Export U.S.A., with a preface by William Burroughs. This edition went out of print fairly quickly, and the book did not reappear in the U.S. until 1990 when Re/Search brought out a large format, extensively illustrated, paperback edition. This reverted to the original title and retained the Burroughs introduction; it also added sidebar annotations by Ballard, as well as four additional pieces - three of Ballard's 'surgical fictions' from the 1970s, Princess Margaret's Facelift, Mae West's Reduction Mamoplasty, and Queen Elizabeth's Rhinoplasty, and (rather incongruously) a story from the late-1980s, The Secret History of World War 3. This was followed, three months later, by Re/Search's signed hardback edition, limited to 400 un-numbered copies; or at least, that what it says on the limitation page ... but the copyright page says that it's limited to 300 copies. Odd!

The sidebar annotations (but not any of the illustrations) were included in a U.K. large format paperback edition by Harper Collins/Flamingo in 1993; of the additional stories included by Re/Search, only Princess Margaret's Facelift and Mae West's Reduction Mamoplasty were incorporated in this U.K. edition. Later Flamingo editions were normal size paperbacks, which meant that the annotations were relegated to separate sections at the end of each chapter.

Grusomhedsudstillingen: Rhodos, p/b, 1969

Cape, 1970

Doubleday, 1970 (destroyed)

Grove Press, 1972

Re/Search, 1990

Harper Collins/Flamingo, p/b, 1993

VERMILION SANDS 

This volume collected Ballard's stories set in the resort of 'Vermilion Sands'. It first appeared as a U.S. paperback by Berkley in 1971, and was then published by Cape in the U.K. as a hardback in 1973. The Cape edition adds one story to the contents of the original Berkley edition.

Some of the stories in the Cape edition included minor changes to the text, in order to obtain a more consistent style for stories that had been written several years apart.

Berkley, p/b, 1971

Cape, 1973

CHRONOPOLIS AND OTHER STORIES

Issued in hardback by Putnam in the U.S. in 1971; there was never any U.K. edition of this collection. There was however a U.S. book club edition.

Putnam, 1971

LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT AND OTHER STORIES

A U.K. collection from Cape in 1976, which included the first publication of the story The Ultimate City.

Cape, 1976

THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION OF J. G. BALLARD

A U.K. 'best of', in paperback, published in 1977. Rather oddly, the title page says The Best of J. G. Ballard, omitting the words 'Science Fiction'.

Orbit/Futura, p/b, 1977 

THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF J. G. BALLARD 

And in 1978, a 'best of' in the U.S., this time in simultaneous hardback and paperback.

Holt Rinehart, 1978

THE VENUS HUNTERS 

First published in 1980 as a paperback in the U.K. by Granada, this collection also came out as a U.K. hardback in 1986 as part of Gollancz's series of Ballard re-issues. It is in fact a revised version of the earlier collection The Overloaded Man, with which it shares seven stories.

Granada, p/b, 1980

Gollancz, 1986

MYTHS OF THE NEAR FUTURE 

A collection gathering together most of Ballard's new stories that had appeared over the previous few years, as well as the first publication of the title story. Published in the U.K. by Cape in 1982.

Russell's Guide to First Edition Prices refers to a U.S. edition by Farrar Straus in 1991, but I have never seen a copy listed anywhere, and this is most likely a confusion with the U.S. edition of War Fever, which most certainly was published by Farrar Straus in 1991.

Cape, 1982

MEMORIES OF THE SPACE AGE 

A themed collection of Ballard's ‘astronaut stories', published by Arkham House in the U.S. in 1988, and which included a number of full page illustrations by Jeffrey K. Potter.

Arkham House, 1988

WAR FEVER 

War Fever contains most of Ballard's stories from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. It was first published in 1990 by Collins in the U.K., and the following year in the U.S. by Farrar Straus.

Collins, 1990

THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES 

First published in the U.K. by Flamingo in 2001. This original one-volume edition became surprisingly scarce, although copies are now rather easier to find than they used to be. There seems to have been an earlier version of the dust jacket, with a price of £17.99, instead of the actual price of £25. There was also a one-volume paperback edition, again out of print.

Despite its title, the book does not include all of Ballard's short stories. If we discount those that are shortened versions of Ballard's novels (Storm-Wind, The Drowned World, Equinox), then the following are missing: (i) The Violent Noon, an early non-professional story published while Ballard was at university, and The Hardoon Labyrinth, another early story that was discovered in Ballard’s archives after his death; (ii) most of the stories included in The Atrocity Exhibition, namely You and Me and the Continuum, The Assassination Weapon, You: Coma: Marilyn Monroe, The Atrocity Exhibition, Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy, The Death Module, Love and Napalm: Export USA, The Great American Nude, The University of Death, The Generations of America, The Summer Cannibals, Tolerances of the Human Face, Crash!; (iii) the so-called 'surgical fictions', Coitus 80, Princess Margaret's Facelift, Mae West's Reduction Mamoplasty, Queen Elizabeth's Rhinoplasty, Jane Fonda's Augmentation Mammoplasty; (iv) a few other pieces, namely Journey Across a Crater, The Secret Autobiography of J. G. B******, and The Dying Fall. It also excludes those items classified as Miscellaneous Media.

In 2006, The Complete Short Stories was republished in two paperback volumes by HarperPerennial, but omitting the novella The Ultimate City.

A U.S. edition, with the slightly revised title of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard, was published by W. W. Norton in September 2009. This volume incorporates all of the stories from the original Flamingo volume and adds The Secret Autobiography of J. G. B****** (re-titled as The Secret Autobiography of J.G.B.) and The Dying Fall. A paperback edition followed in November 2010.

Farrar Straus, 1991

Flamingo, 2001

Norton, 2009