First Love, Last Rites

short stories by McEwan

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July 16, 2026

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First Love, Last Rites is a 1975 collection of short stories by Ian McEwan. This collection, along with his second, In Between the Sheets (1978), features disturbing tales characterized by sexual deviance, dark humor, and macabre obsessions, earning McEwan the nickname "Ian Macabre". These early works established McEwan's reputation for exploring unsettling themes and complex characters.12

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Ian McEwan
Education and first works
…his first two short-story collections, First Love, Last Rites (1975; film 1997)—winner of a Somerset Maugham Award for writers under age 35—and In Between the Sheets (1978), both of which feature a bizarre cast of grotesques in disturbing tales of sexual aberrance, black comedy, and macabre obsession. His first novel,…
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…his first two short-story collections, First Love, Last Rites (1975; film 1997)—winner of a Somerset Maugham Award for writers under age 35—and In Between the Sheets (1978), both of which feature a bizarre cast of grotesques in disturbing tales of sexual aberrance, black comedy, and macabre obsession. His first novel,…
Read More