Author: Matthew Gale

1Christmas, A Story

By Zona Gale

This is a gentle Christmas story, whose message is that if we didn't already have Christmas, we'd find a way to invent it. It's hard times in Old Trail Town as the Season of Giving approaches. The factory that employs most of the town is closed and not likely to re-open, and town merchants fear that people will try to shop on credit. Unwilling to carry the debt, the merchants work out a scheme to get everybody in town to agree not to have Christmas that year. What happens next proves that Christmas can't be banned from the hearts of those who truly believe in it. (Summary by Christine Dufour)

2Miss Lulu Bett

By Zona Gale

Lulu Bett is a spinster, living at the turn of the 20th century essentially as a servant with her sister Ina and brother-in-law Dwight. She is, uncomplainingly, "the family beast of burden," living in the background and tending to the family's needs. It therefore surprises everyone, Lulu included, when Dwight's visiting brother Ninian proposes to her, and she accepts. The surprise is even greater when Lulu returns home alone from their honeymoon trip, with the news that Ninian was already legally married before he married her. What follows brings Lulu into conflict with the self-satisfied Dwight, forcing her to choose how she defines herself, with unexpected results. This novel is the basis of the 1921 play for which Zona Gale became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The original ending of the play, in which Lulu gains freedom by walking away from the security of the family, was considered so controversial that a new ending was written. In this, the book, we see the author's original intent. (Summary by Christine Dufour)

3Someone to Watch Over Me

By Floyd C. Gale and H. L. Gold

In the awfulness of hyperspace, everything was the nightmare opposite of itself... and here was where Len Mattern found his goal! - Summary by Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1959