Last Tales

Last Tales is a collection of twelve of the last tales that Isak Dinesen wrote before her death in 1962. They include seven tales from Albondocani, a projected novel that was never completed; "The Caryatids," an unfinished Gothic tale of a couple bedeviled by an old letter and a gypsy's spell; and three tales of winter, including "Converse at Night in Copenhagen," a drunken, all-night conversation between a boy-king, a prostitute, and a poor young poet. "The dozen stories in this...collection may be the literary testament of one of the most skilled but least prolific writers of the twentieth century.... The characters are large, heroic figures and they are brought to earth with a resounding crash. Such men and women are rare in contemporary fiction: the art to make them live vitally...as Dinesen does...is rarer still." -- Time "A writer with a powerful imagination and a shrewd intelligence." -- The New York Times Book Review