Hugh Garner (1913–79) is one of the most prolific of Canadian writers. The five short-story collections (The Yellow Sweater, 1952; Hugh Garner's Best Stories, 1963; Men and Women, 1966; Violation of the Virgins, 1971; The Legs of the Lame, 1976) containing his best-known and most critically acclaimed works represent only one aspect of his literary oeuvre. In a career spanning five decades from the 1930s to the 1970s he published novels, around 100 short stories, pieces of journalism, works of detective fiction and autobiography, and adaptations for television and radio. This productivity was a result both of Garner's provocatively anti-intellectual aesthetic credo, leading him to state that “the first duty of a writer is to entertain” (1952, n.p.), and of the necessity — emphasized by Garner himself — to earn a living as a writer. He was thus perfectly willing to produce hack-work, and to publish, re-publish, and adapt his writings as often as possible.

This attitude to creativity has proved to be a double-edged sword for Garner's reputation. While ensuring him a wide readership during his lifetime, as well as a certain amount of critical acclaim — his short-story collection Hugh Garner's Best Stories won the prestigious Governor General's Award in 1963 — it led the majority of critics to dismiss his work as uninspired and workmanlike. However, his best and most frequently anthologized pieces, such as “One-Two-Three Little Indians” or “The Yellow Sweater,” transcend his limitations, and rank as classic examples of the Canadian short story. These are works of which Garner was justifiably proud; he describes them as being among his “favorite stories” (1952, n.p.), a judgment that has been echoed by critics, for example in Tracy Ware's statement that “One-Two-Three Little Indians” “has its place on the shortlist of Garner's best works and in the canon of Canadian short fiction” (1998, 72). If Garner's works are now more critically acclaimed than they were during his lifetime, it is thanks in large measure to the efforts of Paul Stuewe, a scholar and writer who has devoted considerable energies to the study of Garner. Not only did he complete Garner's unfinished police novel Don't Deal with Five Deuces, he has also written a biography of Garner (1988), as well as a study of the author and his work (1986).