The Stories of Paul Bowles

First edition thus. Thick 8vo. Pp. xii, 657, [1 (blank)]. Quarter bound scarlet over mustard paper-covered boards, lettered in silver to spine. Author portrait frontispiece. With a four-page introduction by Robert Stone. Jacket design by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich.

Published posthumously, the first comprehensive collection of Bowles's short stories, including 'The Delicate Prey,' 'A Distant Episode,' 'Pastor Dowe at Tecaté,' 'Call at Corazón,' and 'Allal.'

Orchestral in composition and exacting in theme, marked by a unique, delicately spare style and a dark, rich, exotic mood, they are by turns chilling, ironic, and wry. Gore Vidal ranked them as "among the best ever written by an American". His works were added to the Library of America (aimed at preparing scholarly editions of American literary classics and keeping them permanently in print) in 2002. "This definitive volume will be a must-have for all major libraries". –Publishers Weekly