Guys and dolls : the stories of Damon Runyon / introduction by William Kennedy.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

You can count on Guys and Dolls being revived at least once every ten years, and on and on, probably as long as there is an America. For the stories of Damon Runyon, from which came what many authorities think is the greatest musical ever created, are as American as apple pie. You'll savor the spice and richness in these thirty-two tales, a perfect sampler of the Runyon genius. Here you will read about Runyon's most fabulous - that is to say - Runyonesque characters. Start with "Broadway Complex", featuring a doll named Miss Florentine Fayette and such assorted guys as Bib Nig the crap shooter, Regret the horse player, Upstate Red, and Nathan Detroit, who runs the crap tables. In "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown", the story that directly inspired Guys and Dolls, you'll meet Obadiah Sky Masterson, a crap shooter of some repute, Brandy Bottle Bates, and Miss Sarah Brown, "one of the most beautiful young dolls anybody ever seen on Broadway, and especially as a mission worker". Go on and savor such classic stories as "Little Miss Marker", which became Shirley Temple's first movie; "A Piece of Pie", starring possibly the greatest eater alive, Nicely-Nicely Jones; "Blood Pressure", an encounter with the likes of Rusty Charley, Sleepout Sam Levinsky, and Lone Louie from Harlem; and "Situation Wanted", starring Asleep, a guy madly in love with Miss Anna Lark, who dances behind bubbles at the Starlight restaurant. A made-up cast of thousands comes out of the fertile mind of Damon Runyon In stories that will make you smile and giggle and yearn for the Broadway that was.