In her lifetime, Naomi Mitchison wrote over two hundred and fifty pieces of fiction which can be described as short stories. Many of these were brought together in the stand-alone collections: When the Bough Breaks (1924), Barbarian Stories (1929), The Hostages (1930), Boys and Girls and Gods (1931), African Heroes (1968), The Brave Nurse (1977), Images of Africa (1980), Beyond This Limit (1986), What Do You Think Yourself? (1982), or with poems in these volumes: Black Sparta (1928), The Delicate Fire (1933), The Fourth Pig (1936), Five Men and a Swan (1957), and A Girl Must Live (1990). Others appeared as contributions to a wide variety of magazines.These are brought together here for the first time..