France (1844-1924) was a French poet, journalist and successful novelist who produced several bestsellers. Ironic and sceptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Academie francaise and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1922 his entire works were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Prohibited Books Index) of the Catholic Church which he regarded as a 'distinction'. The index was abolished in 1966. This collection of stories in English translation was published in 1908.