To Cut a Long Story Short

Preface

Before you begin this volume of fourteen short stories, as in the past I would like to acknowledge that several of them are based on true incidents. On the contents page you will find these indicated by an asterisk (*).

In my travels around the globe, always searching for some vignette which might have a life of its own, I came across ‘Death Speaks’, and was so moved by it that I have placed the story at the beginning of the book.

It was originally translated from the Arabic, and despite extensive research, the author remains ‘Anon’, though the tale appeared in Somerset Maugham’s play Sheppey, and later as a preface to John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra.

I have rarely come across a better example of the simple art of storytelling. A gift that truly lacks any prejudice, it is bestowed without regard to birth, upbringing or education. You only have to consider the contrasting upbringings of Joseph Conrad and Walter Scott, of John Buchan and O. Henry, of H. H. Munro and Hans Christian Andersen, to prove my point.

In this, my fourth volume of stories, I have attempted two very short examples of the genre: ‘The Letter’ and ‘Love at First Sight’.

But first, ‘Death Speaks’: