After the Fireworks collects three of Aldous Huxley’s classic pieces of short fiction. In the title novella, set in Rome, internationally famous novelist Miles Fanning sets out on a walk down Via Condotti toward the Spanish Steps when he encounters the mysterious Pamela Tarn — a beautiful young American admirer of his work who shares a name, in addition to conspicuous personality traits, with a character from his most celebrated book. Though it becomes clear neither is as they appear, both are irresistibly drawn into a dangerous affair set against the backdrop of the Italian capital. This collection also includes Uncle Spencer (1924), the story of an aging World War I veteran’s quest for his lost love he met in a prison during the war, and Two or Three Graces (1926), the tale of a passionate and destructive writer’s abusive relationship with an impressionable, bourgeois housewife.