These fourteen early Truman Capote stories are essential to understanding his work, or, as the famous critic Hilton Als put it, “to understanding how a boy from Monroeville, Alabama, became an American literary legend.” The reader is presented with a series of characters: women experiencing the pains and joys of love, intellectuals defending themselves from the cruelty and indifference of the world with the armor of feigned cynicism, children and adults seeking trust and understanding in vain. The world of Capote's stories is far from idealized - it is full of crime and injustice, poverty and despair. However, in this world there is a place for passion, and for tenderness, and for generosity, and even for a miracle... The collection is being published for the first time.