Night Black Agent

Fritz Leiber's classic collection of fantasy stories, _Night's Black Agents_ (1947) has gone through several editions over the years. The first edition was a hardback published by Arkham House, consisting of ten stories: two Gray Mouser sword and sorcery adventures, one Story of Transition ("The Man who Never Grew Young"), and seven modern fantasy tales. A later paperback version published by Ballantine in 1961 included nine stories, but omitted "Adept's Gambit," one of the Gray Mouser tales. Arguably the best (at least, the most complete) version is that published by Berkley Books in 1978. It contains all ten stories from the Arkham House edition, plus two later fantasy tales: "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" ( Avon Books, 1949) and "A Bit of the Dark World" (_Fantastic_, 1962). Ronald Clyne did the cover to the Arkham House book, Richard Powers did a spectacular cover for the Ballantine edition, and Wayne Barlowe is credited with the cover to the Berkley edition.