A beautiful hardcover edition of the collected short stories of "one of the best short story writers who ever lived" ( Newsweek) —with an introduction by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea . Widely known for her extraordinary novels, including The Heat of the Day , The House in Paris , and The Death of the Heart , Elizabeth Bowen established herself in the front rank of twentieth-century writers equally through her short fiction. This collection includes seventy-nine magnificent stories written over the course of four decades, including such beloved classics as “Mysterious Kôr,” “The Demon Lover,” “Summer Night,” “Ivy Gripped the Steps,” and “The Happy Autumn Fields.” Whether placing her reader in a remote Irish castle or a seaside Italian villa or bomb-scarred London during the Blitz, Bowen was famous for scene setting of almost hallucinatory vividness, but her ability to evoke inner landscapes of spellbinding intensity was even more remarkable. Frustrated lovers, acutely observed children, and even vengeful ghosts inhabit her tales with an urgency and emotional complexity that make it clear that the drama of human consciousness was her central subject. These stories are enduring testimony to Bowen’s reputation as a creator of finely chiseled narratives—rich in imagination, psychological insight, and craft—that transcend their time and place. "Quite simply one of the best short story writers who ever lived." — Newsweek "Bowen's stories show the awesome capabilities of the English language and the surprise and mystery of the human soul." — The New Republic "Bowen's stories are novels that have been split open like rocks and reveal the glitter of the naked crystals which have formed them." — Vogue "Richly reconfirms the extraordinary contribution Elizabeth Bowen has made to English letters." — The New York Times Book Review Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899. She wrote many acclaimed short stories and novels, including The Heat of the Day, The Death of the Heart, The Last September,  and Eva Trout . She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1948. She died in 1973. JOHN BANVILLE, author of seventeen novels, has been the recipient of the Man Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Guardian Fiction Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature. He lives in Dublin. Breakfast 'BEHOLD, I die daily,' thought Mr Rossiter, entering the breakfast-room. He saw the family in silhouette against the windows; the windows looked out into a garden closed darkly in upon by walls. There were so many of the family it seemed as though they must have multiplied during the night; their flesh gleamed pinkly in the cold northern light and they were always moving. Often, like the weary shepherd, he could have prayed them to keep still that he might count them. They turned at his entrance profiles and three-quarter faces towards him. There was a silence of suspended munching and little bulges of food were thrust into their cheeks that they might wish him perfunctory good-mornings. Miss Emily further inquired whether he had slept well, with a little vivacious uptilt of her chin. Her voice was muffled: he gathered that the contents of her mouth was bacon, because she was engaged in sopping up the liquid fat from her plate with little dice of bread, which she pushed around briskly with a circular movement of her fork. It was not worth sitting down till she had finished, because he would be expected to take her plate away. Why was the only empty chair always beside Miss Emily? Last night in the lamplight he had almost begun to think he liked Miss Emily. She was the only lady present who had not beaten time with hand or foot or jerking head while they played 'Toreador Song' on the gramophone. But here, pressed in upon her by the thick fumes of coffee and bacon, the doggy-smelling carpet, the tight, glazed noses of the family ready to split loudly from their skins. . . . There was contamination in the very warm edge of her plate, as he took it from her with averted head and clattered it down among the others on the sideboard. 'Bacon?' insinuated Mrs Russel. 'A little chilly, I'm afraid. I do hope there's plenty, but we early birds are sometimes inclined to be rather ravenous. She added: 'There's an egg,' but there was no invitation in her tone. She could never leave a phrase unmodified. He could have answered with facetious emphasis that he was almost inclined to believe he would rather have enjoyed that egg. Dumbly, he took two rashers of the moist and mottled bacon. 'And then,' Hilary Bevel was recounting, 'it all changed, and we were moving very quickly through a kind of pinkish mist--running, it felt like, only all my legs and arms were somewhere else. That was the time when you came into it, Aunt Willoughby. You were winding up your sewing machine like a motor car, kneeling down, in a s