This companion volume to Bishop's The Complete Poems: 1927-1979 is arranged in two parts -- stories and memoirs of persons and places, some of which were found among her papers after her death in 1979. Among the stories are: "In the Village," an account of a Nova Scotia childhood; "Gwendolyn," about the death of a little girl; "The Housekeepers," "The Sea & its Shore," "The Baptism," "The Farmer's Children" and "In Prison." The nonfiction pieces include her introduction to The Diary of "Helena Morley," an essay on primitive painter Gregorio Valdes, and a witty memoir of her mentor, Marianne Moore. The volume includes two priceless memoirs of her childhood "Primer Class" and "The Country Mouse," an account of her early adulthood in Key West in "Mercedes Hospital." The prose pieces help us distinguish the sources of the mysterious energies that issue only in her poetry, from those that emerge in personal narrative. ISBN 0-374-12628-3 :