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The US cover of Fragile Things

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders is a collection of short fiction by Neil Gaiman. It was published in the US and UK in 2006 by HarperCollins and Headline Review.

Most of the stories in this book are reprints from other sources (magazines, anthologies, and even CD sleeves).

These are the stories and poems included:

• "A Study in Emerald"
• "The Fairy Reel"
• "October in the Chair"
• "The Hidden Chamber"
• "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire"
• "The Flints of Memory Lane"
• "Closing Time"
• "Going Wodwo"
• "Bitter Grounds"
• "Other People"
• "Keepsakes and Treasures"
• "Good Boys Deserve Favors"
• "The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch"
• "Strange Little Girls"
• "Harlequin Valentine"
• "Locks"
• "The Problem of Susan"
• "Instructions"
• "How Do You Think It Feels?"
• "My Life"
• "Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot"
• "Feeders and Eaters"
• "Diseasemaker's Croup"
• "In the End"
• "Goliath"
• "Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky"
• "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"
• "The Day the Saucers Came"
• "Sunbird"
• "Inventing Aladdin"
• The Monarch of the Glen

• Gaiman says in the introduction that the original title for the collection was These People Ought to Know Who We Are and Tell We Were Here, after a word balloon in a Little Nemo in Slumberland strip.
• "Sunbird" was Gaiman's attempt at writing a story in the style of R. A. Lafferty.
• The story "Goliath" is set in the Matrix universe. It was included with the Matrix Comics Vol. 1.
• "Pages from a Journal..." was written for Tori Amos's album Scarlet's Walk. Tori Amos is a good friend of Neil Gaiman.
• Neil Gaiman wrote "A Study in Emerald" as a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu Mythos pastiche. It was written for the anthology Shadows Over Baker Street, edited by Gaiman's good friend Michael Reeves.
• The novella, The Monarch of the Glen, is a sequel to American Gods.

• Fragile Things on Neil Gaiman Website

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