The Prussian Officer and Other Stories is a collection of early short stories

Short Stories

Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...

 by D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...

 which Duckworth

Gerald Duckworth

Gerald de l'Etang Duckworth was a British publisher.-Background and early life:Duckworth was a son of Herbert Duckworth, a London barrister, by his wife Julia Jackson. His middle name, de l'Etang, was the surname of one of his mother's ancestors, Antoine de l'Etang, a page to Queen Marie Antoinette...

, his London publisher, brought out on 26 November 1914. An American edition was produced by B W Huebsch in 1916.

The stories collected in this volume are:

• The Prussian Officer
• The Thorn in the Flesh
• Daughters of the Vicar
• A Fragment of Stained Glass
• The Shades of Spring
• Second Best
• The Shadow in the Rose Garden
• Goose Fair
• The White Stocking
• A Sick Collier
• The Christening
• Odour of Chrysanthemums
  Odour of Chrysanthemums
  "Odour of Chrysanthemums" is a short story by D. H. Lawrence. It was written in the autumn of 1909 and, after revision, was published in The English Review in July 1911. Lawrence later included this tale in his collection of short stories entitled The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, which...
  
  

The first narrative of The Prussian Officer and Other Stories is The Prussian Officer and tells the narrative of Captain and his orderly. Having wasted his youth with gambling, the captain has been left with only his military career, and though he has taken on mistresses throughout his life, he remains single. His young orderly is involved in a relationship with a young woman, and the captain, feeling sexual tension with regards to the young man, prevents the orderly from engaging in the relationship by taking up his evenings. These evenings lead to the captain abusing his orderly and leaving large, painful bruises on his thighs, making it hard for the orderly to walk. Whilst isolated in a forest during manoeuvres, the orderly takes out murderous revenge on the captain, but finds himself in a daze seemingly due both to the pain of the bruises and thirst. The orderly eventually collapses and dies in the hospital shortly there after. The corpses of the two men lay side by side.

Standard edition

• The Prussian Officer and other stories (1914), edited by John Worthen
  John Worthen
  John Worthen taught at universities in North America and Wales before becoming Professor of D. H. Lawrence Studies at the University of Nottingham, where he remains Emeritus Professor. His inaugural lecture as Professor of D H Lawrence Studies was published under the title Cold Hearts and Coronets...
  
  , Cambridge University Press, 1983, ISBN 0-521-24822-1