The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a collection of short stories by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, named after a line from A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad,[1] and first published by Harper & Row in 1975.

[4] The protagonist of "The Day Before the Revolution" was an inspiration for the society depicted in The Dispossessed (1974), and the short story is described as a prologue to that novel, though it was written later.

[18] Literary scholar Charlotte Spivack writes that "The Field of Vision" also contains thematic similarities, in its exploration of science and religion, though it features a futuristic setting.

[19] Scholar Elizabeth Cummins links "The Day Before the Revolution" and "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" to "The Field of Vision", writing that they "show Le Guin's continued concern with utopia".

[18] Literary scholar Susan Wood suggested that the collection shared broad themes, including a "concern with the nature of truth" and the "right way to live".

[5] The Wind's Twelve Quarters was positively received by critics, though, according to Spivack, reviewers were generally less favorable toward Le Guin's short stories than her novels.

[43] Multiple reviews called attention to the author's notes that preceded each story, with the Sydney Morning Herald saying they "[threw] some light on the workings of one of the most original minds in the genre".

Wood called particular attention to "Nine Lives", "Winter's King", and "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow", writing that in each, scientific extrapolation was used as a "framework for powerful psychological studies".

[46] Publishers Weekly highlighted the stories "April in Paris", "Nine Lives", and "The Ones Who Walk from Omelas" (sic), while the Salt Late Tribune reserved particular praise for "Winter's King" and "Semley's Necklace".

[7][43] In a 2020 retrospective of the collection in Tor, Sean Guynes wrote that the four "germinative" stories that grew into novels were of interest largely because they hinted at Le Guin's later explorations, but considered "Semley's Necklace" "beautifully written" and "The Rule of Names" amusing.

[47] The rest of the volume, in contrast, received strong praise: Guynes wrote that they were "heady, beautiful, and thought-provoking", written with a "careful, sometimes quiet, power".

[49] Guynes noted that many individual stories in the collection were among Le Guin's most famous, including in particular "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and "The Day Before the Revolution".