Although William Humphrey's reputation mainly rests upon his five novels, he began his career with a book of short stories, The Last Husband and Other Stories (1953), and he continued to write short stories throughout his life. Following the publication of his first two novels, Home from the Hill (1958) and The Ordways (1965), he produced a second volume of short stories: A Time and a Place (1968). His stories to that point, together with two until then unpublished, were published in Collected Stories in 1985. Reviewing this volume in The St. Petersburg Times (18 August 1985), Robert Atwan acknowledged Humphrey as a traditional storyteller: "Pride, shame and loyalty motivate the characters in these stories, not ego, guilt and group affiliations. At times, Humphrey's world view seems closer to Homer, Virgil and Sophocles than it does to any modern thinker. Fate and fortune seem far more important than their modern replacements-self-determination and success. The gods...