The works in this volume show Eileen Chang's brilliance in the short-story form. Through fascinating evocations of the great cities of Hong Kong and Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s, she provides revealing glimpses of Chinese Life - both traditional and modern - as she depicts a world of concubines and opium addicts, fast living and family affairs.In the novella Love in a Fallen City, an unlikely couple find true romance as bombs fall on Hong Kong during the Second World War. And in other tales, a schoolgirl is lured into the decadent world of her disreputable aunt, an awkward student's overpowering wish for a different father has disastrous consequences, and a successful businessman reflects on the women he has loved and lost.