A girl shares her secret den. A couple stroll through a ruined city. A man walks into a ladies’ hat shop. A teacher dreams of killing her pupil. Spanning the 1920s to the post-war years, this selection brings Elizabeth Bowen’s finest short stories together for the first time. Elegant and subtle, they showcase Bowen’s ability to evoke ineffable emotions – grief, nostalgia, self-consciousness, dread – and combine remarkable psychological insight with vivid settings, from the countryside of Bowen’s native Ireland to the streets of her London home after the Blitz.