4. Chinese Puzzle

deals with the egg of a Chinese dragon hatching (=вилупиться) in Wales, much to the astonishment =( удивление) of the local populace. Originally published in Argosy, this story inspired Peter Rudland's design for the cover of early editions= эта история вдохновила дизайн Петр Rudland для обложки ранних зданий.

5. Esmeralda

is a performing flea =блоха. Though she never managed the bicycle trick, her greatest stunt=трюк involved unwittingly=невольное, непреднамеренное, sorting out her owner's love-life. Хотя ей і не вдавався трюк на велосипеді, її самий великий трюк той, що вона невольно бере участь у любовному житті її володаря.

6. How Do I Do?

sees a young woman meeting her future self. Her first thought upon travelling to the future or to the past? Buying a new wardrobe. The author tries to explain why does she do it.

7. Una фтщерук the title «The Perfect Creature»).

sees a genetically created creature fall in love with one of the people who come to investigate its creator's lab. Originally published in Argosy, this story also appears in The Best of John Wyndham (a.k.a. The Man from Beyond) under the title «The Perfect Creature»).

8. Affair of the Heart

tells of a man who has proposed to the same woman on the same day for over thirty years. At the end this man did commit suicide after the 32nd date.

9. Confidence Trick

tells of an Underground train-journey to hell itself, and the effects of belief on the part of the travellers. This story inspired the cover artwork for later editions.

10. The Wheel

takes a brief look at the religiously devout= набожный, благочестивый survivors= выжившие of a near-apocalyptic catastrophe for a humanoid race.

11. Look Natural, Please!

presents the story of an iconoclastic young photographer who becomes part of the artistic establishment.

12. Perforce to Dream

Perforce =насильственный, вынужденній, волей-неволей

Perforce to Dream sees two women discovering that not only have they independently written two near-identical novels based on their recurring dreams= повторяющиеся сны, but that many other women share these very same dreams. This story originally appeared in Women's Journal.

13. Reservation Deferred

sees a ghost visit a dying teenage woman and change her views about the male-designed afterlife.

14. Heaven Scent

originally published in Everybody's, is the story of the scheming secretary of a brilliant inventor.

15. More Spinned Against

(which first appeared in Argosy), tells of how the legendary Arachne =Арахна finds herself in the clutches= когти of a spider-obsessed =(одержимого) collector and of the deal she makes with the collector's wife Lydia.

III. The Best of John Wyndham is a paperback collection of science fiction short stories by John Wyndham, published after his death by Sphere Books,

first in 1973

Michael Joseph Limited has published the book as a hardcover under the title The Man from Beyond and Other Stories in 1975. For the 1977 Sphere paperback edition it was split into 2 parts, both containing the full bibliography and the introduction by Leslie Flood.

Part 1

The Best of John Wyndham 1932-1949

1. The Lost Machine (1932)

2. The Man from Beyond (1934)

3. The Perfect Creature (1937)

4. The Trojan Beam (1939)

5. Vengeance by Proxy (1940)

6. Adaptation (1949)

Part II

The Best of John Wyndham 1951-1960

1. Pawley's Peepholes (1951)

2. The Red Stuff (1951)

3. And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (1951)

4. Dumb Martian (1952)

5. Close Behind Him (1952)

6. The Emptiness of Space (1960)

1. The Lost Machine is the posthumous history of an artificial intelligence's experiences on the barbaric planet Earth in the primitive times of the early 20th Century.

2. The Man From Beyond sees a human desperately attempting to convince the people of Venus to have nothing to do with their neighbours in space as they are without hope of redemption.

3. The Perfect Creature has also been published as Una in Jizzle and tells the story of a scientist's attempts to create the 'perfect' creature, and what happens when he gets the hormone balance wrong.

4. The Trojan Beam sees a British secret agent used as a go-between with the warring states of China and Japan and sees the Trojan Beam used to alter the balance of power.

5. Vengeance by Proxy is a horror story updating the vampire myth to modern Eastern Europe and pastiching the story telling form of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

6. Adaption dramatises the need for life to be adapted to the world in which it grows on as a father searches desperately for his long lost daughter.

7. Pawley's Peepholes sees time travelers from the future disrupting small town life by treating it as a quaint place to sight see.

8. The Red Stuff is a mysterious, fast growing entity that first consumes a meteorite, then an entire space ship and ends up on a moon base.

9. And the Walls Came Tumbling Down is the report of a silicone based life form experiencing hostility on Earth.

10. Dumb Martian tells of a Human and his Martian 'wife' out deep in space, far away from civilisation and the man's slow descent into brutality and madness.

11. Close Behind Him is a horror story about a burglar who becomes convinced that the spirit of a man killed during a break in is coming ever closer behind him.

12. The Emptiness of Space is a story of the Troon family as seen in The Outward Urge. In New Caledonia, 2194, an astronaut suffers the after effects of the urge to travel in space and fears he has lost his soul.