IN WORK -- Sept 2020:

An "anthology" is a book of stories by different authors, as chosen and gathered by the book's editor(s), while a "collection" is a book of stories by a single author (as chosen by the author, or perhaps a separate editor). While the terms anthology and collection are often used interchangeably in general literary culture, with rare exception (e.g. Gardner Dozois' 35 year annual "collections"), the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres use the terms in this way. These pages summarize some 1420 sf/f/h anthologies, gathered onto 118 pages defined by editor or theme, with links to scroll through them chronologically, in effect presenting a history of these genres through anthologies from the 1940s to present. Each of the 118 group pages includes a composite table of contents of all the books in that group. Along with citations, the anthology data is compiled here as a supplement to the awards data, with composite assessment of all these data forthcoming. Anthologies are instrumental for understanding the principle works of short fiction that have defined the modern genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, since many of the classic works of these genres appeared before awards for them were established. These genres appeared first in short stories, mostly published in cheap, pulp, magazines in the second quarter of the 20th century; science fiction books appeared routinely only in the 1950s, fantasy and horror books in later decades. The modern genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror developed in short stories, mostly published in cheap magazines in the second quarter of the 20th century, before novels in those genres became commonplace in the 1950s and later. Since most of these magazines were cheap and ephermeral, anthologies have served, since the 1940s, to preserve the short stories that might otherwise be forgotten. As a supplement to the awards data on this site, the contents of some

The over 1000 reprint anthologies compiled and indexed here thus represent both repeated editorial judgments of stories worthy of publication and reader attention, and the mechanism of how stories remain available for readers and thus constitute canonical bodies of short works of these genres.

"In addition the descriptions of these anthologies, in chronological groups, provide a history of publication and thematic trends over the decades, and for this reason a few key ""original"" anthologies -- that is, books of original stories, not reprinted from earlier sources -- are included in the sequence below."

"Sources:
• William Contento's Locus Index to Science Fiction, available here on CD ROM;
• The Internet Speculative Fiction Database, ISFDB;
• The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, SFE;
• Bud Webster's book Anthopology 101: Reflections, Inspections and Dissections of SF Anthologies (Merry Blacksmith Press, 2010)." \\\ old text:

Anthologies are the third leg, after Awards and Citations, of the sfadb tripod. Anthologies supplement awards data for short fiction as Citations supplement awards data for books.

November 2018 update: New groups of anthologies and their contents are being installed this Fall and Winter, with TOCs on the pages linked below or via links to isfdb.org.

Halls of Fame







Golden Age






Academic Overviews




Teaching Anthologies







Brian Aldiss



Damon Knight






Robert Silverberg






Gardner Dozois






David G. Hartwell








Singletons






Best of Bests