Judith Thurman's Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller (1982) is the most comprehensive biography of Dinesen's life in print. Thurman writes ill a clear, straightforward, readable style, and her work is accepted by most as the definitive biography of Dinesen.

Winter's Tales (1942) is the collection in which "Sorrow-Acre" first appeared. The other stories ill the book, according to critic Marcia Landy, "are structured around dominant Shakespearian motifs-the relationship between art and nature, loss and recovery, and the pastoral elegiac vision as a vehicle for exploring these motifs. "

Out of Africa is Dinesen's best-known work.

Loosely adapted and mixed with parts of Shadows in the Grass, it was made into a movie by Sydney Pollack in 1982. Both novel and film chronicle an Africa of dangerous, arduous beauty.

In terms of economy and insight, Guy de Maupassant is considered by many to...