In the stories that make up Dance of the Happy Shades, the deceptive calm of small-town life is brought memorably to the page, revealing the countryside of Southwestern Ontario to be home to as many small sufferings and unanticipated emotions as any place. This is the book that earned Alice Munro a devoted readership and established her as one of Canada's most beloved writers.

Winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, Dance of the Happy Shades is Alice Munro's first short story collection.

"No writer, including Chekhov, has so richly explored the feelings and lives of women in our time." —Annie Proulx

"The living writer most likely to be read in 100 years." —Atlantic Monthly