In a Cruel Twist of irony, Texas-born Patricia Highsmith is only now, six years after her death, being recognized for her inestimable genius in her native land. With the savage humor of Evelyn Waugh and the macabre sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe, she brought a distinct twentieth-century acuity to her prolific body of noir fiction. Called "the poet of apprehension" by Graham Greene, Highsmith was unrivaled in capturing the ways in which our seemingly benign neighbors can become the psychopaths next door. Now, five of her classic short story collections are combined in a single volume, The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith, with a foreword by Graham Greene. With Selected Stories, W. W. Norton is proud to bring out the first in a series by Patricia Highsmith -- a master of suspense and an American literary icon.