His first published collection, these twelve stories were written between 1907 and 1914, during a crucial period of development for Lawrence from which he emerged a leading figure of the modernist movement. Reaching new levels of feeling and experience, these stories range from the tale of a Prussian officer who drives his orderly towards a bloody reckoning, to the strangely exotic elements of "A Fragment of Stained Glass", and the divisions within society and conflicts of the heart that form the central themes of "Daughters of a Vicar". Interweaving individual lives, their happiness, failures and defeats, with the profound forces of nature, Lawrence has created stories of remarkable power and sensitivity.