From the landmark writer and activist of the Harlem Renaissance, Alice Dunbar Nelson, A Carnival Jangle is a powerful and unflinching collection of stories inspired by her early life in New Orleans. These are stories of love, betrayal and fortitude, peopled by an array of vivid characters whose dramas bring alive Creole life in the late nineteenth century. Women must walk a tightrope between respectability and desire in stories such as ‘A Carnival Jangle’.

Poverty is tackled head-on in the moving stories ‘M’sieu Fortier’s Violin’ and ‘Little Miss Sophie’, whilst Catholic faith mixed with Creole spirituality looms large in ‘The Goodness of St. Rocque and Odalie’. 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 Allen Poe, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Alice Dunbar Nelson, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Rabindranath Tagore.