I would like to nominate
Limits and Renewals by Rudyard Kipling, first edition 1932.
The note from the cover of my copy reads as follows:
Quote:
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Limits and Renewals was Rudyard Kipling's last collection of stories. There are, as so often, fourteen of them, interspersed with apposite poems. The subjects are familiar, humorous, sometimes bizarre, incidents told in the ironic, allusive dialogue that only Kipling could write. There are stories of Early Christians, of "The Woman in his Life" (who is, of course, a dog) of various kinds of practical jokes, a charming anecdote of a village priest and village atheist. But these stories were written after the Great War and Kipling's loss of his only son, when he was old and often in pain. It is not surprising, though not immediately obvious, that he was obsessed with the problem of pain at this time and also with the "breaking strain" that a man can take. A more rewarding theme in this book is the value of love, the salvation of personality through loving - rather than being loved.
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You can download a copy of it from the Adelaide University ebook site here:
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/