First published in the United States in 2020 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The party -- A place in the country -- Vittorio -- In one's own house -- Villa Adriana -- Cliffs of fall -- Weekend -- Harold -- The picnic -- The worst moment of the day -- Nothing in excess -- The flowers of sorrow -- The meeting -- Swoboda's tragedy -- The story of Miss Saidie Graine -- Official life -- A sense of mission -- The separation of Dinah Delbanco -- Woollahra Road -- Forgiving -- Comfort -- Out of Itea -- The everlasting delight -- The statue and the bust -- Leave it to me -- Sir Cecil's ride -- Le nozze -- The sack of silence.

Twenty-eight works of short fiction in all, Shirley Hazzard's collected stories is a work of staggering breadth and talent. Taken together, Hazzard's short stories are masterworks in telescoping focus, ranging from quotidian struggles between beauty and pragmatism to satirical sendups of international bureaucracy, from the Italian countryside to suburban Connecticut. In an interview, Hazzard once said, 'The idea that somebody has expressed something, in a supreme way, that it can be expressed; this is, I think, an enormous feature of literature'. Her stories themselves are a supreme evocation of writing at its very best: probing, uncompromising and deeply felt.