Penguin Classics: Pale Horse, Pale Rider: The Selected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

From the gothic Old South to revolutionary Mexico, few writers have evoked such a multitude of worlds, both exterior and interior, as powerfully as Katherine Anne Porter. This collection gathers together the best of her Pulitzer Prize-winning short fiction, including 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider', where a young woman lies in a fever during the influenza epidemic, her childhood memories mingling with fears for her fiancé on his way to war, and 'Noon Wine', a haunting story of tragedy and scandal on a small dairy farm in Texas. In all of the compelling stories collected here, harsh and tragic truths are expressed in prose both brilliant and precise.

'Katherine Anne Porter's short stories are unsurpassed in modern fiction' Robert Penn

'Porter writes English of a purity and precision almost unique in contemporary fiction' Edmund Wilson

'She solves the essential problem: how to satisfy exhaustively in writing briefly' V.S. Pritchett

'Porter's stories take accurate and deadly aim... dazzling' The New York Times