Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories

The eighteen pieces collected in Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories bring together the many and subtle voices of Ethel Wilson, demonstrating her extraordinary range as a writer. From the gentle mockery of the title story to the absurdist reportage of “Mr. Sleepwalker,” Wilson exerts unerring narrative control. Revealing what is “simple and complicated and timeless” in everyday life, these stories also venture into irrational realms of experience where chance encounters assume a malevolent form and coincidence transmuted into nightmare.

First published in 1961, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories is a diverse and rewarding collection, unified by Ethel Wilson’s distinct and engaging wit.

ETHEL WILSON was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in 1888. In 1898, she moved to Vancouver to live with her maternal grandmother. In the 1930s Wilson published a few short stories and began a series of family reminiscences, which were later transformed into The Innocent Traveller. Her first published novel, Hetty Dorval, appeared in 1947, and her fiction career ended fourteen years later with the publication of her story collection, Mrs. Golightly and Other Stories.

DAVID STOUCK is a professor of English at Simon Fraser University.

1 Mrs. Golightly and the First Convention
2 Haply the soul of my grandmother
3 On Nimpish Lake
4 From Flores
5 God help the young fishman
6 We have to sit opposite
7 The Birds
8 A drink with Adolphus
9 I just love dogs
10 The corner of X and Y streets
11 “To keep the memory of so worthy a friend”
12 Fog
13 Hurry, hurry
14 Truth and Mrs. Forrester
15 Mr. Sleepwalker
16 Beware the Jabberwock, my son . . . beware the Jubjub Bird
17 Till death us do part
18 The Window
 
Afterword