Ian McEwan is now known to the whole world as a classic of English literature. But once he, like everyone else, was only a novice in the literary world. "First Love, the Last Anointing" is the first collection of short stories published by him. This book is for everyone who is interested in how McEwan began his journey, it is written with the audacity of a young man and the talent of a real genius.In his early stories, the author demonstrates a wide range of stylistic experiments. "It was a kind of laboratory for me," he said in an interview, "a way to try out different registers, to find myself as a writer." In the McEwan laboratory, the great-grandson of an outstanding amateur mathematician of the XIX century repeats his great-grandfather's experiments in the field of stereometry of human bodies. Teenagers arrange a men's triathlon "smoking — drinking — women", and the victim of a difficult childhood will give an interview without getting out of the closet. Three stories from this collection were filmed — the title, "Stereometry" and "Butterflies" twice.