Ireland has been called a nation of story-tellers. "Stories of one kind or another have a way of pressing themselves into Irish conversation, both as entertainment and as a form of communication," writes William Trevor. "For centuries they have been offered to strangers, almost as hospitality is: tall stories, simple stories, stories of extraordinary deeds, of mysteries and wonders, of gentleness, love, cruelty, and violence." Himself an accomplished short story writer, Trevor has gathered here a collection of stories that represent not only the best of Irish short story writing, but the best of the genre.
Spanning the entire history of the Irish short story, from folk-tales to modern writing, this is the most broad-ranging anthology available. Included are such masters as James Joyce and Elizabeth Bowen, who established Ireland at the forefront of the modern short story, as well as Frank O'Connor and Sean O'Faolain, the two most important writers since Joyce and Bowen. Trevor has selected stories by Bernard McLaverty and Desmond Hogan to represent the new generation of writers. But, as Elizabeth Bowen observed, the modern short story in Ireland is "a young art," and it is against the nation's deeply rooted oral tradition that it must be considered. Toward this end, The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories includes seven folk tales translated from the Irish by Sean O'Sullivan, and Seamus MacManus's re-telling of an Irish fairy tale.
William Trevor is one of today's most famous and respected Irish writers. (His work is represented here by the short story "Death in Jerusalem.") The 45 stories he has selected for this anthology, for which he has written a generous introduction, cover a 250-year period and works by 35 authors. Together they demonstrate the development of the short story in Ireland, a land where a flair for storytelling has "become a national characteristic."

The Boarding House by William Trevor - a darkly comic novel by one of the world's best writers William Bird has always taken in boarders who are on the fringes of society: the petty conman, the immigrant who's never been able to fit in, the blustering officer who really doesn't know what's what , and the just plain lonely. He's built a unique place with a unique atmosphere. But then he realizes he's dying, and he decides to leave the place to the two tenants likely to cause the greatest amount of trouble, and the whole enterprise goes up in smoke. William Trevor's dark comedy, reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark, was his second novel. 'Trevor has the knack of slicing life so that it reveals lower layers we have not suspected' Daily Mail 'He tells you the most outrageous things in a most pleasant manner, hardly ever raising his voice' Guardian William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, in 1928, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He has lived in England for many years. The author of numerous acclaimed collections of short stories and novels, he has won many awards including the Whitbread Book of the Year, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. He has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize: in 1976 with his novel The Children of Dynmouth, in 1991 with Reading Turgenev and in 2002 with The Story of Lucy Gault. He recently received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement.

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The Collected Stories - a stunning volume of William Trevor's unforgettable short stories William Trevor is one of the most renowned figures in contemporary literature, described as 'the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language' by the New Yorker and acclaimed for his haunting and profound insights into the human heart. Here is a collection of his short fiction, with dozens of tales spanning his career and ranging from the moving to the macabre, the humorous to the haunting. From the penetrating 'Memories of Youghal' to the bittersweet 'Bodily Secrets' and the elegiac 'Two More Gallants', here are masterpieces of insight, depth, drama and humanity, acutely rendered by a modern master. 'A textbook for anyone who ever wanted to write a story, and a treasure for anyone who loves to read them' Madison Smartt Bell 'Extraordinary... Mr. Trevor's sheer intensity of entry into the lives of his people...proceeds to uncover new layers of yearning and pain, new angles of vision and credible thought' The New York Times Book Review

In the early morning of June the twenty-first, nineteen twenty-one, three arsonists -- shadows in the night -- arrive at Lahardane, the home of Captain Everard Gault, his wife, Heloise, and daughter, Lucy. The sheepdogs that alarmed the Gaults of previous trespasses had since been poisoned. On this occasion, though, it is a warning shot fired above the silhouetted heads that sends them retreating, saving the estate from being set ablaze. But blood speckles the pebbles of the approach in the dawn's light, implying that the Captain's single shot wounded one of the intruders.
Everard quickly learns the identity of the wounded -- a boy named Horahan -- and thereafter sets to make amends. His apologies and offers of restitution to the boy and his family are ineffective, however, and the Gaults realize then that further defiance to certain forthcoming attacks is senseless. "The past was the enemy in Ireland," writes Trevor. Protestant property was the common target in this time of insurrection and civil war, two years after Sinn Fein declared Ireland independent, and the Gaults had obvious British sympathies: Everard, a former British army officer; Heloise, an English wife and mother; Lahardane, an ancestral Irish property since the eighteenth century. It is too dangerous for them to stay. They too must desert Ireland like so many families before them.
Eight-year-old Lucy is never properly explained the danger of staying at Laharadane. It is the only place she has known; a place where the flow of streams around moss-covered stones, the bloom of the apple orchard, the pull of the sea's tide, and the fishermen on the shore are the very fabric of her being. So it is then, forlorn and mournful, that Lucy decides to run away on the night before her family's scheduled departure for England. However, when her parents find an article of her clothing on the shore where she frequently went swimming they fear the worst: that she has drowned.
Stricken by grief and remorse, devastated by guilt and blame, Everard and Heloise regard the plans they have made and retreat from Ireland. Windows are boarded, furniture is draped, and Lahardane is left in the care of their servants, Henry and Bridget. But almost as soon as the Gaults have left Henry finds Lucy -- alive, emaciated, her ankle broken and badly swollen -- in an abandoned cottage in the woods. The Gaults, however, have forsaken their intentions to relocate to England and have vanished into Europe. The trail following them is less than cold, their whereabouts critical yet unknown, and for thirty years this remains as they sojourn through France, Switzerland and Italy.
Henry and Bridget resuscitate Lahardane and take up custodial care of Lucy. As she matures, though, she also becomes more reclusive and insular. Children in the village refuse to play with her. She is stared at, spoken of in hushed tones and, over time, exiled. The anguish over her parents' fate wanes as the myth of hers similarly grows. She develops into a voracious reader and to a certain degree lives her life vicariously through the characters that populate the novels in her family's extensive library. It is by chance then that at age twenty-four Lucy meets a man -- Ralph.
Ralph, a young Englishman, arrives in Ennisealea to work as a tutor to the banker's sons for the summer. While on a drive, familiarizing himself with the Irish countryside, he happens upon Lahardane. Ralph and Lucy, upon meeting, are immediately enchanted with one another and Ralph, after his departure, can't let a thought pass through his mind that isn't of beautiful Lucy. Properly, he is invited back to Lahardane, as those closest to Lucy hold their breath and privately hope that Ralph will become her future suitor. Sadly, those hopes are dashed. The end of summer nears and so too does Ralph's tenure with the Ryalls, but not before he pronounces his love for Lucy. Lucy's self-reproach for the bisecting of her family weighs heavy, though. "She believed she had no right to love until she felt forgiven," and thusly she rejects Ralph's affection and proposal of marriage. His love unrequited, Ralph returns to his English home and shortly thereafter enters the war.
Guilt-laden, unbeknown to them that their daughter and home persevere, Everard and Heloise live a life in exile on the continent -- an exile both self-imposed and inflicted by Mussolini's war. It's not until Heloise contracts influenza and perishes that Everard resolves to return to Ireland and the home he left behind three decades previous.
Arriving at Lahardane, the Captain is astonished to find the house unsealed and tended. Yet he is more astonished to find Lucy alive; the daughter he thought for deceased now a grown woman. But Everard's return to a paternal relationship with Lucy is, logically, strained. Moreover, he feels undeserved of anything greater than the respect Henry and Bridget would extend to that of a stranger, for it is their house now -- as it has been since he entrusted it to their care with his exit in nineteen twenty-one -- and he is a phantasm. Still, Everard makes every effort to atone for his absence, for an adolescence and adulthood choked by his neglect, delinquency and taciturnity.
In the end, the forgiveness that Everard searches for is diminished by his daughter's redemption: Lucy has forgiven the arsonist wounded by his single shot. It was the young boy, Horahan, who many, many years ago put the tragic sequence of events in their lives into motion. But it is now the older man, after unrelenting nightmares of successfully setting the Gault estate ablaze, killing Lucy, who is driven to insanity.

'What a writer he was; he could flip over a sentence so gently, and showthe underbelly in a heartbeat. His work is always quietly compassionate' Elizabeth Strout In this final collection of ten exquisite, perceptive and profound stories, William Trevor probes into the depths of the human spirit. Here we encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when they meet again years later; a young girl who discovers the mother she believed dead is alive and well; and a piano-teacher who accepts her pupil's theft in exchange for his beautiful music. These gorgeous stories - the last that Trevor wrote before his death - affirm his place as one of the world's greatest storytellers. 'Trevor is a master of both language and storytelling' Hilary Mantel 'He is one of the great short-story writers, at his best the equal of Chekhov' John Banville 'The greatest living writer of short stories in the English language' New Yorker

The Old Boys by William Trevor - a novel of power, revenge, love and the failure of love from one of the world's best writers A group of septuagenarians revive schoolboy conflicts in the election of the President of the Old Boys Association. Jaraby expects to get the job, but he reckons without the bitterness of Nox, who still remembers the humiliations of his school years. And when Jaraby's son gets into trouble with the law, Nox has the perfect stick with which to beat him. Their powers may be failing but the old boys possess a fierce understanding of the things in life that matter - power, revenge, hatred, love, and the failure of love. The Old Boys was William Trevor's acclaimed first novel. It will be enjoyed by fans of The Story of Lucy Gault and Felicia's Journey, as well as readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. 'Uncommonly well-written, gruesome , funny and original' Evelyn Waugh 'Immaculately witty and inventive writing' Daily Telegraph William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, in 1928, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He has lived in England for many years. The author of numerous acclaimed collections of short stories and novels, he has won many awards including the Whitbread Book of the Year, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. He has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize: in 1976 with his novel The Children of Dynmouth, in 1991 with Reading Turgenev and in 2002 with The Story of Lucy Gault. He recently received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement.

The Love Department by William Trevor - a darkly comic novel about a thief of the heart, by one of the world's best writers From the offices of her Love Department, Lady Dolores cures the heartaches of the lonely wives of Wimbledon with inimitable flourish and finesse. When her newest protege, the somewhat naive Edward Blakeston-Smith, is sent on a mission - to learn the secrets of seductive, scheming Septimus Tuam and stop him in his tracks - he learns all about love, its friends and enemies. The Love Department was William Trevor's third novel, published in 1966. It will be enjoyed by readers of Colm Toibin, Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark. 'A fantasy which proliferates entertainingly from a germ of reality - the reality of boredom felt by comfortably-off suburban wives' Listener 'William Trevor can pack into ten or twenty pages an astounding richness of pathos, humour and tragedy' Francis King William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork, in 1928, and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He has lived in England for many years. The author of numerous acclaimed collections of short stories and novels, he has won many awards including the Whitbread Book of the Year, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. He has been shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize: in 1976 with his novel The Children of Dynmouth, in 1991 with Reading Turgenev and in 2002 with The Story of Lucy Gault. He recently received the prestigious David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement.

A Bit on the Side - Twelve remarkable stories by the master storyteller William Trevor 'Compassionate, poignant, even heart-rending. Almost perfect works of art by perhaps the greatest short story writer now working in English' Sunday Independent William Trevor is truly a Chekhov for our age. In these twelve stories, a waiter divulges a shocking life of crime to his ex-wife; a woman repeats the story of her parents' unstable marriage after a horrible tragedy; a schoolgirl regrets gossiping about the cuckolded man who tutors her; and, in the volume's title story, a middle-aged accountant offers his reasons for ending a love affair. At the heart of this stunning collection is Trevor's characteristic tenderness and unflinching eye for both the humanizing and dehumanizing aspects of modern urban and rural life. If you enjoyed The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer, you will love this book. It will also be adored by readers of Colm Toibin, George Saunders and James Joyce. 'A treat ... each meditate[s] on the subject of love - adulterous, unspoken, clandestine, sometimes cruel. Whether set in rural Ireland or London, their pages whisper of relished secrets and dreams foolishly clung to' Mail on Sunday William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.

William Trevor's new collection of stories is his first since the highly acclaimed After Rain. It contains a dozen new stories, mostly set in Ireland, that show Trevor at the height of his powers. With understatement and precision he writes about the lonely and the sad, about those that barely have control over their lives and those who have something to hide. In 'Three People' a father waits for the proposal for his daughter that will never come; in 'Against the Odds', a con-woman has business that takes her all across the Six Counties; and in the poignant title-story, a youngest son returns home for his father's funeral and stays to run the farm.

'A master of both language and storytelling' HILARY MANTEL 'Compact and ordinary, it was a town in a hollow that had grown up there for no reason that anyone knew or wondered about . . .' Rathmoye, Ireland, in the middle of the last century, and into town comes a stranger on the day of Eileen Connulty's funeral. Taking unwanted and unasked for photographs, Florian Kilderry upsets its carefully settled status quo. But Ellie, a young convent girl married to a farmer still mourning his first wife, cannot help but be drawn to this trespassing youth. Over the course of a long, warm summer Ellie and Florian form an attachment that sleepy Rathmoye cannot ignore . . . 'Unbearably moving' Spectator

"Two Lives offers two superb novels in one volume . . . as rich and moving as anything I have read in years. . . . Marvelous." --"The Guardian"
Presented here are two unforgettable short novels by acclaimed author William Trevor, both of which focus on women who retreat into their imaginations until the boundaries between what is real and what is not become blurred.
In "Reading Turgenev," an Irish country girl is trapped in a loveless marriage with an older man, but she finds release in secret meetings with a man who shares her passion for Russian novels. This novella was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
The second novella, "My House in Umbria," tells how romantic novelist Emily Delahunty helps the survivors of a bomb attack on a train by inventing colorful pasts for her patients.

"A sensibility reigns here which is at once inquisitive and loving. . . . Trevor's is among the most subtle and sophisticated fiction being written today." --John Banville, "The New York Review of Books"
"A writer at the peak of his powers; Two Lives] reminds you what good reading is all about." --Anne Tyler, "Chicago Sun Times"
"One of the most beautiful and memorable things Trevor has written." --"The Independent on Sunday" (U.K.)

Felicia is unmarried, pregnant, and penniless. She steals away from a small Irish town and drifts through the industrial English Midlands, searching for the boyfriend who left her. Instead she meets up with the fat, fiftyish, unfailingly reasonable Mr. Hilditch, who is looking for a new friend to join the five other girls in his Memory Lane. But the strange, sad, terrifying tricks of chance unravel both his and Felicia's delusions in a story that will magnetize fans of Alfred Hitchcock and Ruth Rendell even as it resonates with William Trevor's own "impeccable strength and piercing profundity" (The Washington Post Book World).

This vivid account of hustling in New York City explores the sociological reasons why con artists play their game and the psychological tricks they use to win it. Terry Williams and Trevor B. Milton, two prominent sociologists and ethnographers, spent years with New York con artists to uncover their secrets. The result is an unprecedented view into how con games operate, whether in back alleys and side streets or in police precincts and Wall Street boiler rooms. Whether it's selling bootleg goods, playing the numbers, squatting rent-free, scamming tourists with bogus stories, selling knockoffs on Canal Street, or crafting Ponzi schemes, con artists use verbal persuasion, physical misdirection, and sheer charm to convince others to do what they want. Williams and Milton examine this act of performance art and find meaning in its methods to exact bounty from unsuspecting tourists and ordinary New Yorkers alike. Through their sophisticated exploration of the personal experiences and influences that create a successful hustler, they build a portrait of unusual emotional and psychological depth. Their work also offers a new take on structure and opportunity, showing how the city's unique urban and social architecture lends itself to the perfect con.

*WINNER OF THE WHITBREAD BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD* *WINNER OF THE SUNDAY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD * From acclaimed author William Trevor, Felicia's Journey is a tightly woven psychological thriller 'A book so brilliant that it compels you to stay up all night galloping through to the end' Daily Mail You're beautiful, Johnny told her. So, full of hope, seventeen-year-old Felicia crosses the Irish Sea to England to find her lover and tell him she is pregnant. Desperately searching for Johnny in the bleak post-industrial Midlands, she is instead found by Mr Hilditch, a strange and lonely man, a collector and befriender of homeless young girls . . . 'Immensely readable. The plot twist is both sinister and affecting, and so skilfully done that you remember why authors had plot twists in the first place' Guardian Readers of The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer will adore Felicia's Journey. It will also be cherished by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature.

Love and Summer - a remarkable, heart-rending novel by acclaimed writer William Trevor 'Lingers in the memory as a beautiful meditation on love, belonging and the impossibility of escape' Observer 'Unbearably moving' Spectator It is summer and a stranger has come to quiet Rathmoye. He is noticed by Ellie, the young convent girl, who is married to Dillahan, a farmer still mourning his first wife. Over the long and warm days, Ellie and the stranger form an illicit attachment. And those in the town can only watch, holding their tongues, as passion, love and fate take their inevitable course. 'A portrait of a brackish rural backwater, complete with family tragedy, sexual scandal, a repressed spinster and a half-crazed ancient retainer . . . delicate, elegiac, written with all Trevor's trademark compassion and understanding' Daily Mail 'A series of wrenching human dramas, which Trevor depicts with kindness and beautiful delicacy' Sunday Telegraph 'Brilliant. Trevor is the ultimate Old Master' Evening Standard 'Beautiful. A flawless work of art' Independent on Sunday Readers of The Story of Lucy Gault and Felicia's Journey will adore Love and Summer. It will also be cherished by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.

The Children Of Dynmouth - a classic prize-winning novel by William Trevor William Trevor's The Children of Dynmouth (Winner of the Whitbread Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize) was first published in 1976 and is a classic account of evil lurking in the most unlikely places. In it we follow awkward, lonely, curious teenager Timothy Gedge as he wanders around the bland seaside town of Dynmouth. Timothy takes a prurient interest in the lives of the adults there, who only realise the sinister purpose to which he seeks to put his knowledge too late. 'A small masterpiece of understatement ... a work of rare compassion' Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times If you enjoyed The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer, you will love this book. It will also be adored by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.

This vivid account of hustling in New York City explores the sociological reasons why con artists play their game and the psychological tricks they use to win it. Terry Williams and Trevor B. Milton, two prominent sociologists and ethnographers, spent years with New York con artists to uncover their secrets. The result is an unprecedented view into how con games operate, whether in back alleys and side streets or in police precincts and Wall Street boiler rooms. Whether it's selling bootleg goods, playing the numbers, squatting rent-free, scamming tourists with bogus stories, selling knockoffs on Canal Street, or crafting Ponzi schemes, con artists use verbal persuasion, physical misdirection, and sheer charm to convince others to do what they want. Williams and Milton examine this act of performance art and find meaning in its methods to exact bounty from unsuspecting tourists and ordinary New Yorkers alike. Through their sophisticated exploration of the personal experiences and influences that create a successful hustler, they build a portrait of unusual emotional and psychological depth. Their work also offers a new take on structure and opportunity, showing how the city's unique urban and social architecture lends itself to the perfect con.

The Collected Stories Giftset - two exquisite volumes of William Trevor's remarkable short stories William Trevor is described as 'the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language' by the New Yorker and acclaimed for his haunting and profound insights into the human heart. Here is the ultimate collection of his short fiction, with dozens of tales spanning his career and ranging from the moving to the macabre, the humorous to the haunting. From the penetrating 'Memories of Youghal' to the bittersweet 'Bodily Secrets' and the elegiac 'Two More Gallants', here are masterpieces of insight, depth, drama and humanity, acutely rendered by a modern master. 'A textbook for anyone who ever wanted to write a story, and a treasure for anyone who loves to read them' Madison Smartt Bell 'Extraordinary... Mr. Trevor's sheer intensity of entry into the lives of his people...proceeds to uncover new layers of yearning and pain, new angles of vision and credible thought' The New York Times Book Review If you enjoyed The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer, you will love this book. It will also be adored by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.