This is the sixth annual collection of stories we consider to be the best by British and Commonwealth writers since our last volume. The two Irish writers we include, even the solitary Scot, will have gown wryly used to being classed British. But these days it edges towards the patronising to assume that the two Canadians chosen, the New Zealander and the South African, are still largely part of the same broad culture which of the English-speaking peoples excludes only America. Yet for literary purposes (including publishing) so things stand, even when these writers are busy extending horizons distinctly on their own.