For the first time all of Carol Shields' remarkable short stories - some previously unpublished - are gathered together in one volume. In The Collected Stories we bring together Carol Shields original short story volumes: Various Miracles, The Orange Fish and Dressing Up for the Carnival. Some of the stories in these individual collections have never before been published in the UK, and we add to these wonderful shorter fictions a chapter from Carol Shields' last, unfinished, novel Segue. In these stories the author combines the dazzling viruosity and wise maturity that won so many readers to novels such as The Stone Diaries and Unless. 'Her perceptions are so quick, her style is so acute, that she can tack a breath to the page and skewer a thought on a wing. It is her speciality to isolate moments that remain distinct in the mind for years, perhaps for a lifetime. ' Hilary Mantel' In her hands we believe anything can happen. ' Guardian