Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stephen Vincent Benet's By the Waters of Babylon is the first, most influential work of post-apocalyptic fiction of the twentieth century. Its haunting story of a tribal priest who investigates the ruins of an ancient city is an unforgettable and challenging reminder of both the fragility of civilization and the hope for human development. This volume also contains six other stories of "Fantasy and Prophecy," including The King of the Cats, a comic fable of human and animal transmutation, selected by the Library of America as one of the outstanding works of fantastic fiction in the past two centuries. The collection By the Waters of Babylon The Curfew Tolls The King of the Cats Doc Mellhorn and the Pearly Gates The Last of the Legions The Blood of the Martyrs Into Egypt