Alan Sillitoe is without doubt one of the most distinguished writers of the twentieth century, renowned for the themes of class and authority that run throughout his fiction. This impressive collection contains his greatest short stories, including his early classic, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. This volume, which includes previsouly unpublished stories, demonstrates the potency and timelessness of Sillitoe's work. He has been widely critically acclaimed:

From Booklist
Sillitoe enjoys high regard in British fiction, particularly for his classic long short story "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner," about a young man in reform school who competes in a long-distance race and, as he does so, what his thoughts are on victory and "reform." Of course, that story appears in this compendium of the author's best short fiction to date, drawn from five previous collections. Critical consensus is that despite such effective novels as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958), Sillitoe expresses himself best in the short form. The "interiorness" of "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" is characteristic of most of his stories. For instance, "The Sniper" offers a disturbing portrait of an old man's haunted mind. Sillitoe's stories often showcase characters whose reality is not quite in sync with how others view reality, as in the stunning story "Uncle Earnest," in which a lonely man befriends a schoolgirl and sustains quite a shock when confronted with other people's lurid interpretation of his motives. Brad Hooper
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