This volume brings together twenty of the best stories written by Dino Buzzati - author of the celebrated novel The Tartar Steppe and one of the most original voices in twentieth-century literature - stories which show the Italian master's taste for the bizarre and the humorous, and for exploring the darker recesses of the human psyche.

From 'The Collapse of the Baliverna', where a man is racked with guilt at the thought that he might have been responsible for the loss of many lives, to 'The Epidemic', which describes the spread of a 'state influenza' contracted only by people who don t step into line with the government, and 'Terror at the Scala', where the higher echelons of Milan society are gripped with the fear of an impending revolution - these stories show how strange and unexpected events can creep into everyday life and draw ordinary people towards mystery, disquiet and, ultimately, catastrophe.