The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World

by Harlan Ellison

Release: October 1967
Format: Short Story
Genre: Horror
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

A pedestrian blood-and-guts version of Jack the Ripper is pulled from 1888 into a sterile city of the future where he promptly slays Hernon’s granddaughter, an occurrence that leaves the equally evil Hernon unrattled.

He had looked up as light flooded him in that other place. It had been soot silent in Spitalfields, but suddenly, without any sense of having moved or having been moved, he was flooded with light. And when he looked up he was in tht other place. Paused now, only a few minutes after the transfer, he leaned against the bright wall of the city, and recalled the light.

DEBUT

“The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World,” in Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison (Doubleday, October 1967).

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Groupings

Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY: We haven’t yet mapped out the time travel itinerary.