An Anthology is a collection of works by multiple creators gathered together in a single cohesive release. Originally, it only referred to literary works, but the term has migrated to many other fields. However, it usually doesn't mean just any collection. There will usually be a unifying theme, such as a genre, a specific theme, or a time period.
Related to Omnibus. Specifically, an omnibus is usually several novels/issues collected in a single volume, an anthology is short fiction by multiple authors, and a collection is short fiction by one author.
Subtropes:
- Animated Anthology
- Anthology Comic
- Anthology Film
- Anthology Series
- "Best Of" Anthology
- Genre Anthology
- Title Drop Anthology
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Touken Ranbu Academy: A series of stories centering on the Touken Danshi from Touken Ranbu in various High School AU settings.
- Zombie Land Saga: ANTHOLOGY: A series of individual manga chapters based on Zombie Land Saga, each with its own writer/illustrator.
Audio Plays
- Big Finish Doctor Who:
- As an experiment, the Main Range story Circular Time wasn't written as a four-part story, but four single-part stories. It was a hit, resulting in Big Finish releasing more anthologies about every year. Often, they had a connecting theme; 100, the 100th Main Range story, revolves around the number 100, You Are the Doctor and Other Stories is themed around choice, The Memory Bank and Other Stories, around perception, and Blood on Santa's Claw and Other Stories, around Christmas.
- Most box sets are anthologies by default, containing two, three, or four different stories.
Fan Works
- The My Hero Academia fanfic All It Takes Is One Good Friend is a collection of one-shots all premised on what would happen if Izuku had just one friend in his corner in Aldera, dealing with Bakugou's bullying. Each one-shot features a different person being that friend, from other U.A. classmates like Ochako and Iida, to other Pro Heroes like Present Mic and Uwabami, and even villains like Stain and Gentle Criminal.
- Van Helsing fanfic The Men They Once Were: Each chapter is an individual origins episode centred around one of the antagonists of Van Helsing, barring Count Dracula's story which spans two chapters. Each antagonist's story details their background and how they fell under evil's control, in an anachronic order.
- The Writer Games: Each chapter contains a Script Fic unique to that chapter that is written in 15 minutes. Most focus on Jaune Arc or have Jaune Arc in an important role. However, some chapters switch up this formula by focusing on other RWBY characters.
- Universes of Legends: This series is a spin-off by Aragorn II Elessar of his Massive Multiplayer Crossover When Legends meet, telling smaller stories across different Earths of The Multiverse. Most of these stories do not connect with each other, other than obvious sequels.
Films — Animation
- Heavy Metal
- The Animatrix is a series of animations that tell a number of background stories related to The Matrix series. The animations are done in various styles, some computer animated, some pencil drawn some of them even in experimental styles. A part of the stories are made by the Wachowski siblings and worked out by their respective artists, some of the stories are original, though they do all happen in the Matrix universe.
Films — Live-Action
- Four Rooms has four writer/directors using the setting of a hotel and the character of a bellhop linking the four stories together.
- Creepshow and Creepshow 2.
- Terror Tract
- Trick 'r Treat
- VHS and its multiple sequels take a found footage approach to horror anthologies.
- Dead of Night
- The ABCs of Death
- Body Bags (1993)
Literature
- The Boy Who Turned into an Engine, and Other Stories
- The Classroom At The End Of The Hall and its sequels contain short tales of kids encountering various supernatural events at school.
- David Weber's Honor Harrington novels currently have six associated anthologies, collected under the Worlds of Honor banner.
- Sword and Sorcery is a collection of Fantasy stories.
- Warriors
- Darkover has several anthologies of stories taking place in that 'verse.
- The Dresden Files has two published anthologies of short stories; Side Jobs and Brief Cases.
- Feather By Feather and Other Stories
- Eating My Words
- The Star Wars Legends Expanded Universe has the Tales anthologies, mostly reprints of stories from the Star Wars Adventure Journal. An example is Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, composed of various stories by various authors about individual inhabitants of that cantina on Mos Eisley. One of the Jawas was planning to take revenge on stormtroopers, there was a Wolf Man and a lamprey woman in love, the bartender wanted to prove that you could be human and still mix drinks as well as something with a better sense of smell, that kind of thing. Some were more or less related. A few were mentioned later in bigger novels, most notably an Ithorian with two clones of a man he'd killed having a cameo in the Jedi Academy Trilogy and the Mistryl Shadow Warrior Shada Du'kal having one of the subplots in the Hand of Thrawn duology.
- In a technical sense, The Bible. It compiles stories written over several centuries in a variety of forms, including parables, poems, prophecies, and teachings.
- The Star Trek Novel 'Verse has many, including Tales of the Dominion War, Tales From the Captain's Table and a collection for each of the TV series' 10th, 20th or 40th anniversary.
- The Black Library publishes both anthologies and omnibuses of Warhammer 40,000 literature. The anthologies tend to focus on a specific faction - "Imperial Guard Anthology" or "Space Marine Anthology", etc - while the omnibuses collect novels (most notably the Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain series).
- Dragonlance: had its "Tales Of The..." series, too. Published as simply Tales Volume #, they each had a unifying theme - Magic Of Krynn was only about magic users or magical items; Kender, Gully Dwarves and Gnomes were all stories told from the perspective of or solely featuring the listed races and Love And War was about, well, love and war. Frequently the first happening during the second. Of course, Raistlin Majere featured prominently in every volume and on the cover of at least one.
- Sword & Sorceress is a long-running series (34 volumes when it ended in 2019) of feminist Sword and Sorcery anthologies, originally edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Many authors, including Mercedes Lackey, saw their first publications and royalties through Sword and Sorceress. After Bradley's death, the series was continued by first Diana L. Paxson, then Elisabeth Waters.
- The Further Adventures of Batman: The stories are primarily about DC Comics characters, focusing on Gotham, but some of the stories approach the subject in a more oblique method.
- Martin H. Greenberg had the connections to put together several authors and find a publisher interested in the collection. Mike Resnick recalls when Greenberg had sold an 'impossible' anthology idea to publishers within three hours.
- Black Widowers: Isaac Asimov would sell the short stories individually, and once he had twelve new files, he'd reprint them in a collection, and add commentary about the publication process. A few stories were published in the collection first, because Dr Asimov didn't have the patience to wait on other people's rate of publication.
- Tales of the Black Widowers represents the first collection of the Black Widowers mysteries.
- The Return of the Black Widowers represents the sixth and last collection of the Black Widowers mysteries.
- "Tales From Shelf 804" contains 32 short stories written around a collection of prompts specifically for the anthology.
- Tales from the Year Between is an anthology series in which each volume takes place in a new invented world. The contributors to each volume work together to create the world for that volume, then create pieces set within it.
- Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories: Dr Asimov, in conjunction with Doubleday, began this series with the intent of publishing all of the short fiction he had ever published. The introduction implies the goal of republishing his novels under this title as well.
- The Arbor House Treasury of Nobel Prize Winners: Their objective was to collect stories from English-language authors who had won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Tevinter Nights is the sixth book set in the Dragon Age universe, featuring stories from a number of writers at BioWare.
- Opus 100: An Autobiography that includes excerpts and fully republished copies of previously written works.
- Fantastic Creatures
- Longsummer Nights: An LGBTQ+ paranormal romance anthology.
- After Oil: An anthology of stories set in many different deindustrial futures, with a final one by the author.
- Oddly Enough: A series of three collections of stories by Bruce Coville.
- There are sixteen (as of 2023) volumes of Heralds of Valdemar anthologies, most of which have one novella penned by the series' creator and editor of the anthologies Mercedes Lackey and are otherwise populated by short stories by other authors, including new ones
- Torchwood (BBC Books): "Consequences" is a anthology of short stories by different writers, all focused around the Torchwood team.
- Living Dead Series:
- Book of the Dead (1989): An anthology of zombie stories that take place in George A. Romero's Living Dead setting.
- Nights of the Living Dead: An Anthology: An anthology of zombie stories that occur after Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Diary of the Dead but before the other Living Dead films.
- Uhriniituntakainen is a series of mostly non-connected short stories taking place in the titular town.
Live-Action TV
- Wide World Of Sports - Trope Maker and Codifier of the Sports Anthology genre (and in every way that counts the Ur-Example of the all-sports network)
- Danger Theatre: A Fox Anthology series from the summer of 1993: rotating 15 minute segments of "The Searcher" (a The Renegade parody) and "Hawaiian Punch" (a Police Procedural comedy starring Adam West).
- Both incarnations of The Outer Limits, 1963 and 1995
- Room 104: A television series that would change genre based on what guest was staying in Room 104.
- The Haunting of Hill House (2018) was retroactively turned into the first installment of an anthology series. Just as Season 1 was a loose, modernized adaptation of Shirley Jackson's 1954 novel, Season 2 - entitled The Haunting of Bly Manor - takes elements from the works of Henry James (specifically the 1868 short story ''The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes'' and the 1898 novella ''The Turn of the Screw'') and the bulk of the show takes place in 1987.
- Hallmark Hall of Fame (All Genres)
- Room 104 (All genres)
- World of Sport was a sports anthology show on British TV that ran for three decades, and among other things, was the British viewing public's weekly access to Professional Wrestling.
- Walt Disney Presents (All Genres)
- Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (All Genres)
- ArchOboler's Plays (All genres)
- High Maintenance (comedy-drama)
Music
- The Beatles: Their three double album The Beatles Anthology is an overview of all kinds of outtakes, demos, live material and early recordings of many of their most famous hits.
- Muddy Waters: The Anthology (1947–1972) is a double album with the most essential songs by the legendary blues singer.
Podcasts
- Mayfair Watchers Society is centered around the monster-infested town of Mayfair, with each episode being about different characters (with a few featuring recurring ones) who have to deal with some monster the episode is built around.
- Someone Dies in this Elevator is made up of several unrelated stories that only have two things in common: there is an elevator, and someone dies in it. Beyond that, they vary wildly in tone, genre and setting.
Video Games
- The Games of the Killer series' final entry, appropriately titled Anthology of the Killer, combines all nine games into one entry.
- Live A Live is an anthology Eastern RPG featuring multiple disparate stories across different time periods.
- UFO 50 is an anthology of fifty Fictional Video Games developed in the 1980s by an obscure fictional developer.
Web Video
- The Hire
- Nightmare Time is an anthology series, each hour-long episode showing one story from the Hatchetfield multiverse.
- The Uncanny Valley is divided into several self-contained shorts, as opposed to the previous Channel Awesome anniversary specials being one long movie.
- Hatchetfield: Consists of 3 full length musicals (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals, Black Friday, and Nerdy Prudes Must Die) With the release of Nightmare Time it's safe to call the Hatchetfield series an anthology series — the same stable of actors rotate through a changing cast of characters to tell a number of stories in the same setting that only loosely fit into one overarching continuity.