THE SANDMAN tells the stories of Dream of the Endless, the embodiment of one of the seven forces that shape the universe (the others being Destinly, Death, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium).  Dream, also known as Morpheus, the Prince of Stories, and the Dream King, is the master of dreams, stories, writers, and artistic inspiration.  He is immensely powerful and he executes his assigned duties faithful but he is not perfect:  he can be arrogant, stubborn, prideful, cruel, and sometimes even an overly-sentimental romantic.  Many of THE SANDMAN stories are not about Morpheus directly but about people and entities who have been affected by him in one way or another:  people who have befriended him, people who have fallen in love with him, artists who have been inspired by him, dreamers who have lost themselves in his world, beings who have sworn vengeance against him, rulers who need advice or a boon from him.

Despite the many  fantastic elements found within them, most of THE SANDMAN stories are not typical comic book fare about people with special powers in multi-colored tights slugging it out.  They are about how we deal with things that everyone faces in the real world:  success, failure, fear, loss, and love.  In other words, themes we can all relate to.
 
 

First appearance of Morpheus, Lord of Dreams.  Morpheus is summoned and imprisoned by a cult of mortals.  He manages to escape, but he has lost the artifacts that give him much of his power.  In his quest to recover them, he crosses paths with John Constantine, with John Dee (Dr. Destiny), and confronts Lucifer within the bounds of Hell itself.  Issue #8, "The Sound Of Her Wings",  marks the first appearance of Morpheus' sister Death.  In this issue Morpheus follows Death for a day as she carries out her responsibilities:  guiding the souls of the departed from the mortal world to the next.  "The Sound Of Her Wings" is a must-read for fans of Gaiman's Death: The High Cost Of Living and Death: The Time Of Your Life series.

"The Sandman is not a superhero…he is an observer, occasionally a catalyst, rarely the focus of the action.  He rules the kingdom of dreams and his motives are not ours to understand.  Neil Gaiman…is the best (at)…combining compassion with gruesome horror (and), delicate characterization with exhaustive research."

-Lewis Shiner, Slam
 

Two of these issues, #9 and #13, stand apart from the rest of the Sandman #9 tells the story of Morpheus and Nada, the greatest love of his life.  This issue helps set the stage for The Season Of Mists (Sandman #21 - #28).  Sandman #13 starts with Morpheus and Death in a tavern in England in 1389 A.D.  There they meet Hob Gadling, who, with the help of Morpheus and Death, discovers that death isn't necessarily what you think it is.  Also in this issue Morpheus and a struggling playwright named William Shakespeare share a secret conversation, of which more is revealed in issues #19 and #75.  The remaining issues form a story called "The Doll's House."  A girl named Rose Walker runs into a convention of serial killers while trying to find her brother.  Morpheus chases down several of his missing servants.  Desire and Despair of the Endless make their first appearances in this story.  The graphic novel edition of The Doll's House also includes Sandman #8, "The Sound Of Her Wings".

"Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN is the most imaginative and transfixing book in mainstream comics today-and also the most radical.  It tells eerie, loopy, sometimes desolating tales about capricious, ill-starred gods and frail humans, and it pulls off the rather neat trick of making Death, at long last, something to die for.  Yet even it its otherworldly moments, SANDMAN's greatest (and most disturbing) strength is that all its horrors, and all its hopes, are only as profound and familiar as the human heart itself.  To read THE SANDMAN is to read something more than an imaginative new comic:  it is to read a powerful new literature, fresh with the resonance of timeless myths."

-Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone
 

This collection is made up of four separate stories.  Sandman #17, "Calliope", tells the story of the muse Calliope, who was once Morpheus' wife, and of her capture by an ambitious aspiring writer who desires to use her gifts to his own ends.  In Sandman #18, "A Dream Of A Thousand Cats" Morpheus reveals that reality is shaped by dreams and tells of how the collective dreams of even a relatively few souls can set reality on its ear.  In Sandman #19, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", we learn that Morpheus and Shakespeare have made a bargain:  Morpheus has given Shakespeare the inspiration he needs to be a great playwright, and in return Shakespeare must write two plays for him.  The first of these two plays is A Midsummer Night's Dream and in this issue Shakespeare has the play performed for the first time for Morpheus and his guests, Lord Auberon and Lady Titania of Faerie.  Sandman #20, "Façade", features Death as she attempts to counsel a woman with a most difficult problem:  she doesn't wan't to live, but is unable to die.

"Neil Gaiman has proved to be one of the most exciting new talents to enter the field in…years.  His monthly comic, THE SANDMAN, takes an original approach to shopworn conventions, creating a fantasy world as rich with potential as Frank Baum's Oz or J.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.  Gaiman's script(s) also display a refreshing amount of wit and compassion.  He plays with tropes borrowed from a wide variety of cultural sources, from pioneering cartoonist Winsor McCay to Lewis Carroll, from Christopher Marlowe to Bruno Bettelheim.  He mixes the majesty of age-old folklore with the tawdry horrors of modern life."

-Michael Berry, San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle
 

Morpheus returns to Hell to once again confront Lucifer, this time to free his once beloved-Nada, whom he had condemned to Hell long ago.  But when he arrives he finds Hell to be empty.  Lucifer has expelled the demons and tortured souls and tells Morpheus that he is abdicating his role as prince of the damned.  Lucifer gives Morpheus the one and only Key to Hell, thus making him responsible for the disposition of the now-empty plane.  Immediately he beset by a host of gods, demons, and other entities, all of whom seek to use Hell for their own purposes.  They each beg, threaten, or offer to bargain in order to persuade Morpheus to give to turn Hell over to them.  Among those who have come to bargain is the demon lord Azazel, who reveals to Morpheus that he has Nada's soul in his possession and will destroy it unless he is awarded the Key.  Issue #21 features the first appearances of Destiny and Delirium, and marks one of the only points in the series where nearly all of the Endless are together at once (the only other times this type of gathering occurs is in The Sandman Special #1 and The Wake graphic novel.

"There was only one Machiavelli, only one Chaka Zulu, only one Alexander of Macedon.  Name the highest and brightest and most accomplished till you get to Fellini or Billie Holiday or George Bernard Shaw; and compare; and recognize how much higher thereafter is the high water mark.  Suddenly, there is more sunlight in the world.  The point being:  Neil Gaiman's work on The Sandman."

-Harlan Ellison, from his introduction to The Season Of Mists
 

Nine individual Sandman stories:

• "Fear Of Falling" -  Morpheus helps an aspiring playwright learn that sometimes it's better to take a risk rather than to never try.
• Sandman #29 "Thermidor" - Morpheus seeks help to rescue his son from the clutches of the mastermind of the terror of the French Revolution, Robespierre.
• Sandman #30 "August"  - Emperor Augustus, the most powerful man in the Roman Empire, perhaps the most powerful man on the planet, is afraid of something, so Morpheus comes to visit to give him some advice.
• Sandman #31 "Three Septembers and a January" - Centers on an actual historical figure, a 19th century man from San Francisco who declared himself to be the emperor of the United States.
• Sandman Special #1 "Orpheus"  - The Orpheus myth retold to fit the Sandman saga.  Orpheus is the son of Morpheus and the Muse Calliope.  After the tragic end to his wedding day, Orpheus seeks the help of father's family to win back his lost love.  Includes appearances by all of the Endless.
• Sandman #38 "The Hunt"  - A young werewolf learns that perhaps we shouldn't have everything we've ever dreamed of.
• Sandman #39 "Soft Places" -  Morpheus encounters a young lost Marco Polo.
• Sandman #40 "A Parliament Of Rooks"  - Several of the inhabitants of Morpheus' realm have tea and trade stories about family matters, the social behaviors of rooks, and the three wives of Adam.
• Sandman #50 "Ramadan"  - Morpheus and Caliph Haroun Al Raschid strike a bargain to ensure that the mystical wonders of ancient Baghdad will never be forgotten.

Elements of a young girl's dreams spill over into the real world, and vice versa.  Terms of a compact between Morpheus and an old love are finally fulfilled.  [Editorial comment: A Game Of You is my personal favorite of the Sandman stories - Tom]

"Gaiman spins a tale that spans worlds, from the urban inhabitants of a grungy walk-up, to those of a Narnia-type land endangered by an enemy known only as the Cuckoo.  Gaiman's adroit sampling of world mythos gives the series its scope and sense of timelessness, but as usual it's the characters that stand out.  This time the wonderfully motley crew includes a drag queen, a punky lesbian couple, several talking animals, one talking decapitated head, the confused heroine Barbara and, of course, Morpheus himself, THE SANDMAN's eponymous dreammeister…If you haven't read THE SANDMAN yet, this is as good a place as any to start.  Shawn McManus' drawings are marvelous, the story is marvelous, and, by the end, Gaiman's splendid writing even managed to coax a tear from these tired old eyes.  THE SANDMAN remains the standard by which other fantasy works, graphic and otherwise, will be measured in the 90's.  Great stuff."

-Elizabeth Hand, Detroit Metro Times

"…The immediate pleaures of these stories to the first-time reader are many.  It's the rare reader who does not respond Gaiman's imaginative breadth, coupled with his simple accuracy of observation."

-Samuel R. Delany, from his introduction to A Game Of You
 
 

Morpheus and Delirium go searching for their lost brother Destruction.  Coincidently, destruction follows in their wake as they travel.  The first victim to the mysterious destructive force that follows them is Bernie Capax, a 15,000 year old lawyer.  Delirium learns how to drive.  In the end, Morpheus is forced to settle matters with his son Orpheus, to whom he has not spoken in ages.  Features appearances by all of the Endless.

"Neil Gaiman is on a plane all his own.  Nobody in his field is better than this.  No one has as much range, depth, and command of narrative.  Gaiman is a master, and his vast roomy stories, filled with every possible shade of feeling, are unlike anyone else's.  If this isn't literature, nothing is."

-Peter Staub, from his afterword to Brief Lives
 

Travelers seeking shelter from a storm take refuge in a free house, an inn located between worlds, and swap stories about a phantom city, a whiz kid teenage statesman, a population dedicated to the funeral and mortuary arts, and things you find aboard ship and in the middle of the ocean, while they wait for something big to happen.

"These are great stories, and we're all lucky to have them.  To read Now, and maybe again Then, later on, when we need what only a good story has the power to do:  to take us away to World's that never existed, in the company of people we wish we were…or thank God we aren't."

-Stephen King, from his introduction to World's End
 

The Furies find a vessel to unleash their ire against Morpheus:  Lyta Hall, who blames Morpheus for the death of her husband and the disapearance of her infant son Daniel.  A number of goodbyes are said.  Rose Walker, the heroine of The Doll's House story, makes some important discoveries, including the fact that Desire of the Endless is her grandfather.  The Dream King remakes his servant The Corinthian, a walking talking nightmare.  Morpheus makes a difficult choice in order to save his realm.  And we find out what Lucifer has been up to since he left Hell.
 

Stories of endings, farewells, and new beginnings.  Hob Gadling meets Death once again and is given a choice.  An exile from the court of the Emperor of China encounters Dream during a journey across a desert.  Shakespeare fulfills the terms of his bargain with Morpheus and gives him the second of his two plays.
 

For those of you who have already read all or part of the Sandman series, I recommend checking out The Sandman Annotations website.  It contains a lot of information on references in the Sandman stories that you might have missed.