The Mumpsimus

The Library of America has just posted a Fritz Leiber story, "Try and Change the Past" , online. If you've never read any Leiber , now's as good a time as any to start.

Oh, Library of America , you know I love you. You have parted me and my money more times than I would care to admit. I love you for your Bowles and your Lovecraft and Du Bois and Thoreau and Douglass , your O'Connor and Baldwin , your Ashbery and Crane , your Porter and Powell , your Singer and Singer and Singer , your movie critics and poetries , your civil rights and revolution . I am currently enraptured with your Carver . I am eagerly (too weak a word!) awaiting your Fantastic Tales . And I don't say this to just anyone, but I cherish your Dick . I love other things, too, Library of America. (I am polyamorous in my bibliophilia.) I love, for instance, the short stories of Donald Barthelme . And I love the recent biography of Donald Barthelme, Hiding Man by Tracy Daugherty. So dearest Library of America, imagine what I felt when I read these words from an interview with Mr. Daugherty : I believe there was some talk, years ago, of trying to get a Library...