So I started reading Great Short Stories, one of my latest purchases from The Folio Society, yesterday. The collection opens with Alexander Pushkin’s haunting The Queen of Spades (Pikovaya dama). Roman Pisarev, one of my favorite Folio artists, is the illustrator of the Russian portion of the anthology. I’m looking forward to reading Guy de Maupassant’s Miss Harriet. De Maupassant is my all-time favorite storyteller, and I haven’t read Miss Harriet before.
It is rather unfortunate that Anatole France is not represented in the collection—I was really hoping that his Le Procurateur de Judée (The Procurator of Judea) would be in it. It is quite difficult to find it in any decent short story collection. The story is about the later years of Pontius Pilate, the man who ordered the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. It’s one of those short stories that really stays inside your head. The last line uttered by the ex-Procurator is really unforgettable. Read the story here.