Stephen Marlowe 46 min read

Suppose a salesman knocked and said: 'I'm selling happiness, any kind your heart desires, and the price is right.' Would you know instantly the thing you wanted above all else?

Stephen Marlowe's 1958 story sends a door-to-door mood-merchant into an ordinary household, building a wry, cautionary social-SF tale. Sharp, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a clever story that asks what you'd actually buy if happiness itself came peddled to your door.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

46 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Virgil Finlay