Irish modernist writer and author of Ulysses, James Joyce, brings the city and all its characters alive in six affecting, atmospheric stories selected from his iconic 1914 collection Dubliners. Relationships old and new, real and imagined are put to the test in ‘Eveline’ and ‘Araby’. In ‘A Little Cloud’, a young father reflects on his life as he sits in a pub with an old friend fresh from travels abroad.

Could he have done any better with his lot? ‘A Painful Case’ sees a discreet and measured affair run its course, resurfacing one evening as a self-righteous memory. This series of pocket-sized paperbacks celebrates the art of the short story and marks Macmillan Collector’s Library’s 10th anniversary. Each contains a curated selection of short stories from a literary giant: Katherine Mansfield, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Alice Dunbar Nelson, F.

Scott Fitzgerald and Rabindranath Tagore.