Maiden Stakes

Maiden Stakes is a 1929 collection of short stories by the English author Dornford Yates originally written for The Windsor Magazine.

Plot

The book largely consists of stand-alone short stories, but one features the author's 'Berry' characters and references his 1928 novel Perishable Goods.

Background

The stories originally appeared in The Windsor Magazine.

Chapters

"Childish Things" and "Aesop's Fable" appeared in The Saturday Evening Post editions of 27 June 1925 and 10 September 1927 respectively. "St Jeames" appeared in Ladies' Home Journal in August 1927.

Critical reception

The book was written at a difficult time for Mercer, when relations between him and his wife Bettine were getting steadily worse. Nevertheless, the original dedication read "To the American girl who did me the lasting honour to become my wife." In later editions this was changed to "To those exquisite summer evenings, when I have sat, in my shirt-sleeves, two thousand five hundred feet up, watching my elders and betters using the scythe, and, by their comfortable labour, performing the incredible feat of adding sweetness to the mountain air."