Including a previously-unpublished story ‘The Bargain’, Truman Capote’s The Complete Stories is the first ever complete collection stories from one of the masters of American literature, and the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. This Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction by Reynolds Price.

Passionate, perceptive and eloquent, the short stories of Truman Capote are amon the greatest works of twentieth-century American fiction. This new collection gathers them all together for the first time: from early, eerie Southern Gothic tales such as ‘Miriam’ and ‘The Headless Hawk’, to the brilliantly evocative ‘Children On Their Birth-days’ and the tenderly autobiographical ‘A Christmas Memory’ – an affectionate portrayal of Capote’s own Alabama upbringing. Whether describing the Deep South of his childhood, or considering city life with the penetrating gaze of an outsider – as in ‘Among the Paths to Eden’ and the hitherto unpublished ‘The Bargain’ – these stories rank among Capote’s finest work: acutely observed tales from a unique and brilliant mind.

Truman Capote (1924-84) was born in New Orleans. He left school when he was fifteen and subsequently worked for The New Yorker, which provided his first – and last – regular job. He wrote both fiction and non-fiction – short stories, novels and novellas, travel writing, profiles, reportage, memoirs, plays and films; his other works include In Cold Blood (1965), Music for Chameleons (1980) and Answered Prayers (1986), all of which are published in Penguin Modern Classics.

If you enjoyed The Complete Stories, you might like Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

‘One of the century’s greatest storytellers’
Independent on Sunday