This selection of twenty-seven stories shows Maupassant at his comic, cruel, and brilliant best. In addition to the poignant title story, it includes one of the most famous tales ever written, The Necklace , and Le Horla, an account of a disintegrating personality that chillingly parallels the author's own decline into madness. All the stories demonstrate his genius for invention and his ability to write unblinkingly about the absurdity of the human condition, supporting Henry James' claim that in the annals of story-telling, Maupassant stands `like a lion in the path'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

In these stories of Indian life in Trinidad in the 1940s and 50s, Ismith Khan brings to vivid life the morning smells of eggplant frying in coconut oil, and herrings baking in the embers of the earthen fireplace; childhoods such as Pooran's, who has to make his way between the poetic mythology of the pundit and the cold, rationalistic materialism of his science teacher, or 'Thiney Boney' who, newly arrived in Port of Spain from the country, has to choose between his new Creole friends and his father's harsh moral certainties. These are not comfortable childhoods, and several stories show the pressures of poverty and despair leading to the abuse of children by their parents. Stories deal with the trauma of urbanisation as Indians are drawn from the country to Port of Spain, though even in the villages, where the shining metal of the oil refineries dwarfs the grasscutter tending his oxen, old ways must change. Ismith Khan brings a tender and affecting style to stories of troubled childhoods, questioning youth and adult struggle. This is beautiful writing to savour beyond place and time. "The brilliant short story 'A Day in the Country' has a home in my heart. It reminded me of the intense, uplifting genius of Thomas Wolfe's (1900-1938) short story 'Circus at Dawn'. In both stories the concentration on life, on living, on things seen, heard and felt, is so full and rich that plot becomes unnecessary. But 'A Day in the Country' is much more than a generous slice of life, and it does much more than revel in secure country childhood, or celebrate boyhood in the countryside. It makes a moving, ominous communication about the unsheltering of Trinidad, about its unprepared journey, from the 'Drinking Rum and Coca Cola' years of the 40s and 50s to the bewildering, homogeneous brutality of the 20th century." Keith Jardim, The Trinidad Guardian Ismith Khan was born in Trinidad in 1925. He is the author of The Jumbie Bird and The Obeah Man. He lived in New York until his death in 2002.

Winner of the 2017 J. Anthony Lukas PrizeShortlisted for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Foundation AwardFinalist for the 2017 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in JournalismLonglisted for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non Fiction On an average day in America, seven children and teens will be shot dead. In Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge tells the stories of the lives lost during one such day. It could have been any day, but he chose November 23, 2013. Black, white, and Latino, aged nine to nineteen, they fell at sleepovers, on street corners, in stairwells, and on their own doorsteps. From the rural Midwest to the barrios of Texas, the narrative crisscrosses the country over a period of twenty-four hours to reveal the full human stories behind the gun-violence statistics and the brief mentions in local papers of lives lost. This powerful and moving work puts a human face-a child's face-on the "collateral damage" of gun deaths across the country. This is not a book about gun control, but about what happens in a country where it does not exist. What emerges in these pages is a searing and urgent portrait of youth, family, and firearms in America today.

In these nine globe-trotting tales, Mia Alvar gives voice to the women and men of the Philippines and its diaspora. From teachers to housemaids, from mothers to sons, Alvar’s stories explore the universal experiences of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders both real and imagined. In the Country speaks to the heart of everyone who has ever searched for a place to call home—and marks the arrival of a formidable new voice in literature.

GRISHA, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. A big, thick-set, red-haired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his nose, wearing a cabman's full coat, was sitting at the kitchen table on which they chopped the meat and sliced the onions. He was balancing a saucer on the five fingers of his right hand and drinking tea out of it, and crunching sugar so loudly that it sent a shiver down Grisha's back. Aksinya Stepanovna, the old nurse, was sitting on the dirty stool facing him, and she, too, was drinking tea. Her face was grave, though at the same time it beamed with a kind of triumph. Pelageya, the cook, was busy at the stove, and was apparently trying to hide her face.

Contains English translations of sixteen short fiction stories by nineteenth-century French author Emile Zola.

A collection of short stories by Civil War-era author Hale, including a short fantasy entitled "My Double and How He Undid Me."