Boats, beaches, magic, mysteries and more abound in this sun-drenched collection of summer stories.

Two strangers embark on a feverish, dreamlike encounter abroad in Algernon Blackwood’s ‘The Olive’. A man impulsively meets his first love in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Between Two Planes’. Willa Cather writes of sunset island explorations, and Virginia Woolf depicts the all-too-familiar drowsy garden nap. Yet summer idylls can be shattered: there’s a deadly fishing quarrel from Guy de Maupassant, a touch of malevolent fairy magic from Selma Lagerlöf and, of course, Sherlock Holmes finds himself under pressure to solve an unsettling murder on the Cornish coast.

From light humour to deep nostalgia, Italian resorts to rural Russia, each of these tales will transport you somewhere new. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library, these pocket-sized editions are perfect for travel. This edition is compiled and introduced by anthologist Becky Brown.

Becky Brown is an anthologist, editor and literary agent.