When this book was originally issued in 1994, it was the first new collection of Cheever stories in over 15 years. Now, with a comprehensive new biography recently published, and the writings of Cheever bought into the canon of the respected Library of America, here is a key collection of 13 early stories from the 1930s and 1940s, 11 of which cannot be found anywhere else. In this intriguing collection, Cheever plunges us into a stark world of strike-breaking, down-and-outers, burlesque shows, desperate gamblers, and deferred hopes. Called 'the best kept secret of American letters' and 'a virtual literary treasure trove', these stories add a new dimension to the assessment of John Cheever's considerable reputation. Cheever published these stories in the 1930s and 1940s in magazines which ran the gamut from obscure leftist literary periodicals, through ""The New Republic"" and ""The Atlantic Monthly"", to mass circulation glossies like ""Colliers"" and ""Cosmopolitan"", dealing with themes and using techniques which are not generally considered to be 'Cheeveresque'. They will undoubtedly surprise those readers familiar with his 1950s work. Each of these early stories bears the unmistakable stamp of the master storyteller.