Eleven
Short stories of suspense by the author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley—“a brilliant collection” with a foreword by Graham Greene (The Sunday Times).
Master of tension Patricia Highsmith is best known for her novels of ever-increasing suspense, but she is equally adept at the short story, where “she is after the quick kill rather than the slow encirclement of the reader.” Eleven is Highsmith’s first collection of short stories—dark masterpieces of obsession and foreboding, violence and instability (Graham Greene, from the foreword).
In these pages, naturalists meet gruesome ends and unhinged heroes disturb our sympathies; simple cases of murder turn out to be something even more sinister, and the cruelties of childhood come to unsettling life. This is a captivating, important collection from “one of the truly brilliant short-story writers of the twentieth century” (Otto Penzler).
Patricia Highsmith, Graham Greene
Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt, and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.
Graham Greene (1904–1991) is recognized as one of the most important writers of the twentieth century, achieving both literary acclaim and popular success. His best known works include Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, The Quiet American, and The Power and the Glory. After leaving Oxford, Greene first pursued a career in journalism before dedicating himself full-time to writing with his first big success, Stamboul Train. He became involved in screenwriting and wrote adaptations for the cinema as well as original screenplays, the most successful being The Third Man. Religious, moral, and political themes are at the root of much of his work, and throughout his life he traveled to some of the wildest and most volatile parts of the world, which provided settings for his fiction. Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour.
