Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nothing Missing But The Samovar | 1978 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 2 | Corruption | 1984 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 3 | Uninvited Ghosts | 1984 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 4 | Pack of Cards | 1986 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 5 | A Long Night at Abu Simbel | 1995 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 6 | Lost Dog and Other Stories | 1996 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 7 | The Five Thousand and One Nights | 1997 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 8 | Beyond the Blue Mountains | 1998 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 9 | Spooky Stories | 2009 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 10 | The Purple Swamp Hen | 2016 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
| 11 | Metamorphosis | 2021 | Penelope Lively | Buy |
Penelope Lively’s short story collections span from Nothing Missing But The Samovar (1978) to Metamorphosis (2021), covering more than four decades of work. Her stories share the preoccupations of her novels: the persistence of the past, the workings of memory, and the quiet turning points in ordinary lives.
Notable collections include Pack of Cards (1986), which gathers stories from a decade of writing, and The Purple Swamp Hen (2016), published when Lively was in her eighties. Spooky Stories (2009), co-authored with Gillian Cross, collects ghost stories for younger readers.