[1] As she was compiling the stories in 1953, Blixen originally planned for Anecdotes of Destiny to be a final part of the Last Tales collection, but as she neared publication, she decided to release Anecdotes as a separate volume, published the following year.

[3] The collection did not receive the acclaim her other works had generated and was not selected for the Book of the Month Club.

[1] Time magazine's review described the collection as a group of Gothic fiction, which combined a mixture of grotesque and sublime themes in which the romantic plot is obscured by the supernatural and "tragically turns on the concept of honor".

[4] Though the Tales of Albondocani are linked by recurring characters and a unifying theme, they lack a central figure, which she had described but never developed.

[1] She had indicated that her intent was to create a cycle of over 100 tales, reminiscent of One Thousand and One Nights, each complete within itself but woven into the others.