A modern master of the short story, George P. Elliott published two highly regarded collections: Among the Dangs: Ten Short Stories (1961) and An Hour of Last Things, and Other Stories (1968). He has also written novels and poems, and in all genres he infuses a moral imperative. Of the older virtues associated with art-- goodness, truth, love, and beauty--beauty holds the most sway for him. His characters are often saved from their worst selves by a nearly inadvertent brush with beauty, but Elliott refuses to soothe a reader with such proximity. His stories reveal more ugliness than beauty in the human enterprise, yet without cynicism. His work considers how people behave with each other in various contexts: nakedly, in their guises, as families, with the loved and unloved, and in ordinary social interactions. If Elliott's intention is to disturb readers with the mongrel and baser motivations of human behavior...