BARRETT, William - The Edge of Things - (Hardcover)

1961. 285 pages. No dust jacket - Same edition Google image used - Blue cloth boards - Short tear to top of spine - Heinemann 1st British Edition - Previous owner's name in front.   >>>   The Edge of Things is a book of fantasy- two novels and two novelettes that explore the strange borderline between reality and the supernatural. the stories, which range from World War I to the advent of the jet age, deal with the impact of flight on the creative mind, and demand the acceptance of one inexplicable fact vital to each: 
*** "Flight from Youth" , the dreamlike story of how Terence Waynedon, a member of the Royal Flying Corps in World       War I, came to control the soul and fate of an American flyer born in 1918;
*** "The Blue Sleep", a haunting love story dealing with an aviation executives escape from intolerable routine;
*** "The Destroyer", a grim portrait of a man trapped by his own destructiveness; 
*** "Velma", the weird tale of a test pilots romance with a ghost.

William E. Barrett, author of The Lilies of the field, The Glory Tent, The Left Hand of God, is a master story-teller. Here, his boundless imagination and consummate narrative skill have created four absorbing tales that will take every reader to THE EDGE OF THINGS.   (Goodreads)