“Back There in the Grass”
Gouverneur Morris
It and Other Stories
ebook, various editions

No, that’s not a misspelling.  Gouverneur Morris (the first one from the American Revolution) was named after his Dutch mother’s family.  He was the John F. Kennedy of his day, meaning he, um, got around.

This one is his great grandson, who was a magazine writer in the early 20th century.  To my knowledge he didn’t write much in the way of the fantastic.  I read a couple of the other stories in It, including the title story (which was a disappointment), but they were all they type of mainstream things you would find in the upper tier magazines before the Great Depression.

I’d first read “Back There in the Grass” when I was a teenager in one of the Alfred Hitchcock Anthologies (Stories for Late at Night) in the school library or that I’d acquired from a garage sale.  The story has stayed with me all these years.  I came across a reference of Morris in a book I was reading the other day, and decided to see if I could find some electronic copies of his work.

There’s a danger in rereading stories you haven’t read since your youth; too often they don’t live up to your memory of them.  I’m glad to say that wasn’t the case here. Continue reading →