Hard Candy: A Book of Stories is a 1954 collection of short stories by American playwright and writer Tennessee Williams. The 1967 New Directions paperback edition, dedicated to Jane and Paul Bowles, notes that Hard Candy is a later version of Mysteries of the Joy Rio, but even though on the same theme in the same setting the results are so different that both stories are included for interest. The nine stories are Three players of a summer game, Two on a party, The resemblance between a violin case and a coffin, Hard candy, Rubio y Morena, The mattress by the tomato patch, The coming of something to the Widow Holly, The vine, and The mysteries of the Joy Rio.
