A Set of Variations

A Set of Variations is a 1969 short story collection by Frank O'Connor.^[1] It was compiled shortly after the author's death by his widow, Harriet O'Donovan Sheehy, and includes the following stories:

• A Set of Variations on a Borrowed Theme (alternate title: Variations on a Theme)
• The American Wife
• The Impossible Marriage
• The Cheat
• The Weeping Children
• The Saint
• A Minority
• An Out-And-Out Free Gift
• Anchors
• Sue
• Music When Soft Voices Die
• A Life of Your Own
• The Corkerys
• A Story By Maupassant
• A Great Man
• The School For Wives
• Androcles and the Army
• Public Opinion
• The Party
• Achilles' Heel
• Lost Fatherlands
• The Wreath
• The Teacher's Mass
• The Martyr
• Requiem
• An Act of Charity
• The Mass Island

First edition (US)

A similar collection was published in the U.K. in 1969 as Collection Three. The stories included were slightly different, and Collection Three featured one story not included in A Set of Variations ("A Mother's Warning").^[2]