Choice collection of 13 stories includes "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis, Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat," plus superb fiction by Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, many others. Some stories deal with women's issues: "A New England Nun" introduces a woman torn between the freedom and tranquility of her single life and the expectation for her to marry; "Smoke" is about a woman who endures domestic abuse year after year and finally finds vindication in unexpected means; "A Jury of Her Peers" offers a subtle but chilling picture of the systematic killing of women's spirit in domestic life, and then a hopeful suggestion of women's strength when they support one another. Other stories are insightful character studies, sometimes tragic, sometimes satirical, and often revealing about a social problem and the many sacrifices an individual must make to struggle against it. The story "Life in the Iron Mills" is about the poverty, and "Stones of the Village" describes how one person's life could be twisted by racism. However, the stories are much more than a medium for a simple message. They are stories of life, so richly imagined that we feel the characters live on outside of the pages