American novelist and screenwriter Paul Gallico (1897–1976), author of the novels Thomasina and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, made his name in sports journalism, served in the Navy during World War I and as a war correspondent during World War II. He traveled the world, was married four times, and loved fishing, fencing, and animals—he kept twenty-three cats and a Great Dane at home. But most of all, he loved making up stories.

In 1941, Gallico published The White Goose, a short story about the friendship between an unsociable artist living in an abandoned lighthouse and a girl from a fishing village who appears on his doorstep holding a wounded bird. This story of love and war, which earned Hemingway's praise and changed its author's life, was followed by Verna, a tragic tale of a young actress unrequitedly in love with the stage; 'Snowflake' is a philosophical parable about the search for the meaning of life; 'Speechless Hostages' is a dark, Cold War-era grotesque tale about two ruthless killers on the run... These and other deceptively simple, sad, and funny stories by Paul Gallico about the struggle of goodness and humanity against the surrounding darkness and despair are published in this collection, translated by Oleg Dorman and illustrated by Roman Rudnitsky.

The collection includes the following stories: 'White Goose,' 'Verna,' 'The Terrible Secret of Monsieur Bonval,' 'The Hat,' 'The Wonderful Doll,' 'Speechless Hostages,' and 'Snowflake.'