A Natural History of Hell is a collection of thirteen stories written by Jeffrey Ford and released in July 2016.^[1] The collection has won the 2017 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection^[2] as well as the 2016 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Single-Author Short Story Collection.^[3]

Author

Jeffrey Ford is an American fantasy, science fiction, and mystery writer, born in Long Island, New York State on 8 November 1955.^[4] He now lives in Ohio and teaches writing part-time at Ohio Wesleyan University.

The Blameless: A world where exorcisms are as casual as a sweet sixteen
Word Doll: A take on the harvest spirit/monster theme
The Angel Seems: A town suffers the predations of a monstrous angel who offers protection in exchange for occasional poetic and indifferent murder.
Mount Chary Galore: A bone-chilling story of three young children in a more innocent, more difficult time, and their encounter with the local wise woman.
A Natural History of Autumn: Evil Japanese demons and their wild shenanigans.
Blood Drive: A re-imagined America encourages both high school students and teachers carry firearms
A Terror: Emily Dickinson takes that famed carriage ride with Death.
Rocket Ship to Hell: A science fiction writer meets an old man in a bar who spins a truly "weird tale"
The Fairy Enterprise: A heartless industrialist determines to manufacture an unusual sort of product, but finds the process unexpectedly demanding.
The Last Triangle: An addict is rescued by a little old lady.
Spirits of Salt: A Tale of the Coral Heart
The Thyme Fiend: A young in Ohio who sees strange things. The spirits of the dead come back to resolve some mysteries in the living world.
The Prelate's Commission: A story about trying to put a face on the devil and how the devil feels about such efforts.

References

World Fantasy Award—Collection

1975–2000

Worse Things Waiting by Manly Wade Wellman (1975)
The Enquiries of Doctor Eszterhazy by Avram Davidson (1976)
Frights by Kirby McCauley (1977)
Murgunstrumm and Others by Hugh B. Cave (1978)
Shadows by Charles L. Grant (1979)
Amazons! by Jessica Amanda Salmonson (1980)
Dark Forces by Kirby McCauley (1981)
The Dark Country by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold (1982)
Nightmare Seasons by Charles L. Grant (1983)
High Spirits by Robertson Davies (1984)
Books of Blood, Vols. I-III by Clive Barker (1985)
Imaginary Lands by Robin McKinley (1986)
Tales of the Quintana Roo by James Tiptree Jr. (1987)
The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard (1988)
Angry Candy by Harlan Ellison / Storeys from the Old Hotel by Gene Wolfe (1989, tie)
Richard Matheson: Collected Stories by Richard Matheson (1990)
The Start of the End of It All and Other Stories by Carol Emshwiller (1991)
The Ends of the Earth by Lucius Shepard (1992)
The Sons of Noah & Other Stories by Jack Cady (1993)
Alone with the Horrors by Ramsey Campbell (1994)
The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians and A Conflagration Artist by Bradley Denton (1995)
The Grass Princess by Gwyneth Jones (1996)
The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye by Jonathan Lethem (1997)
The Throne of Bones by Brian McNaughton (1998)
Black Glass by Karen Joy Fowler (1999)
Moonlight and Vines by Charles de Lint / Reave the Just and Other Tales by Stephen R. Donaldson (2000, tie)

2001–present

Beluthahatchie and Other Stories by Andy Duncan (2001)
Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson (2002)
The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories by Jeffrey Ford (2003)
Bibliomancy by Elizabeth Hand (2004)
Black Juice by Margo Lanagan (2005)
The Keyhole Opera by Bruce Holland Rogers (2006)
Map of Dreams by M. Rickert (2007)
Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman (2008)
The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford (2009)
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya / The Best of Gene Wolfe by Gene Wolfe (2010, tie)
What I Didn't See and Other Stories by Karen Joy Fowler (2011)
The Bible Repairman and Other Stories by Tim Powers (2012)
Where Furnaces Burn by Joel Lane (2013)
The Ape's Wife and Other Stories by Caitlín R. Kiernan (2014)
The Bitterwood Bible and Other Recountings by Angela Slatter / Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall (2015, tie)
Bone Swans by C. S. E. Cooney (2016)
A Natural History of Hell by Jeffrey Ford (2017)
The Emerald Circus by Jane Yolen (2018)
The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell (2019)
Song for the Unraveling of the World by Brian Evenson (2020)
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda (2021)
Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan by Usman T. Malik (2022)