The definitive collection of short stories by a master of the form and one of Ireland's most celebrated authorsThis indispensable volume contains the best of Frank O'Connor's short fiction. From ';Guests of the Nation' to ';The Mad Lomasneys' to ';First Confession' to ';My Oedipus Complex,' these tales of Ireland have touched generations of readers the world over and placed O'Connor alongside W. B. Yeats and James Joyce as the greatest of Irish authors.Analyzing a Robert Browning poem, O'Connor once wrote: ';Since a whole lifetime must be crowded into a few minutes, those minutes must be carefully chosen indeed and lit by an unearthly glow.' Each of the sixty-seven stories gathered here achieves the same incredible feat of the imagination, laying bare entire lives and histories within the space of a few pages. Dublin schoolteacher Ned Keating waves good-bye to a charming girl and to any thoughts of returning to his village home in the lyrical and melancholy ';Uprooted.' A boy on an important mission is waylaid by a green-eyed temptress and seeks forgiveness in his mother's loving arms in ';The Man of the House,' a tale that draws on O'Connor's own difficult childhood. A series of awkward encounters and humorous misunderstandings perfectly encapsulates the complicated legacy of Irish immigration in ';Ghosts,' the bittersweet account of an American family's pilgrimage to the land of their forefathers.As a writer, critic, and teacher, O'Connor elevated the short story to astonishing new heights. This career-spanning anthology, epic in scope yet brimming with the small moments and intimate details that earned him a reputation as Ireland's Chekhov, is a testament to Frank O'Connor's magnificent storytelling and a true pleasure to read from first page to last.