Collected Stories

For the first time all of Carol Shields’ remarkable short stories – some previously unpublished – are gathered together in one volume.

‘Carol Shields’ stories have given me happiness, not just pleasure’ Alice Munro

In the Collected Stories we bring together Carol Shields’ original short-story volumes, Various Miracles, The Orange Fish and Dressing Up for the Carnival, as well as many stories not previously published in the UK, including ‘Segue’, her last work.

In these stories the author combines the dazzling virtuosity and wise maturity that won so many readers to her prize-winning novels such as The Stone Diaries and Unless.

Reviews

‘Carol Shields sings with the charm of a true siren.’ Guardian

‘Carol Shield’s prose is addictive. Her writing is both smoothly intelligent and sensually immediate, conflating concrete domestic realities with the elemental and miraculous.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Her perceptions are so quick, her style is so acute, that she can tack a breath to the page and skewer a thought on the wing. It is her speciality to isolate moments that remain distinct in the mind for years, perhaps for a lifetime.’ Hilary Mantel, Sunday Times

‘Shields is about the best we have. She does not just express what oft was thought; she snags the shadows of those thoughts, the thoughts we did not know we had. The effect – at once elating and visceral – feels like a conjurer pulling a handkerchief from your heart.’ Daily Telegraph

About the author

Carol Shields’s novels include Unless (2003), Larry’s Party (1997), winner of the 1998 Orange Prize; The Stone Diaries (1993), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize; The Republic of Love (1992); Happenstance (1991) and Mary Swann (1990). Dressing Up for the Carnival, a bestselling collection of short stories, was published in 2000, and a previous collection, Various Miracles, was published in 1994. Born and brought up in Chicago, Carol Shields lived in Canada from 1957 until her death in 2003.