This collection contains, too, many examples of that humorous and epigrammatic genius which captured the London theatre and, by suddenly casting light from an unexpected angle, widened the bounds of truth.

    

    Those contained within this volume are among his finest and most representative and include The Withered Arm, one of his best known and most gripping; Barbara of the House of Grebe, said by T. S. Eliot to portray 'a world of pure evil'; The Son's Veto, regarded by Hardy as his best story; and, of course, The Distracted Preacher, possibly the most flawless of all. Like the novels, the short stories reveal Hardy's preoccupation with affairs of the heart, with love requited and frustrated, fulfilled or doomed. They contain many of his most powerful portraits of women; they are streaked with the grotesque, the macabre and bizarre; and they are permeated by that atmosphere, narrative power, and vivid sense of place and its intimate relation to character which are the essentials of Hardy's genius.

    Implied throughout the book is the question 'What happened to the fifteen-year boys, and how did the lessons they learned at school apply to the world of warfare and imperial government?' These stories are based on Kipling's own schooling, the United Services College at Westward Ho! in Devon.

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    Grand’s compelling story recounts in vivid detail the childhood of her young heroine, Beth, a spirited and intelligent girl who challenges the limitations of provincial life in Ireland and Yorkshire.