 The collection has also been published in German.Most of the pieces were originally published between 1950 and 1954, twelve in "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction", three in "Weird Tales", and eleven in the first edition of the collection; two additional tales subsequently appeared in "Fantastic Universe" in 1959, and one more, together with a new afterword, in the expanded edition of the collection in 1978.The Gavagan's Bar stories fall into the genre of barroom tall tales, though in this instance most of the tall tales turn out to be true, or at least possibly true.