The volume includes three short novels: The ancient mortal condition, The midday wine and Pale horse, pale rider, which gives the collection its title. All were written in the late 1930s, when Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980), the author, was an emancipated and adventurous woman who traveled extensively, worked both as a film extra and as a university professor, was divorced four times, and cultivated storytelling; the fullness of her literary talents.