Abstract
Seeking an editorial logic is imperative when analyzing the books of short stories by Machado de Assis. These are texts that first appeared in dailies and later underwent an editing process carried out by the author to collect them into a single work. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the unit of the book, Várias histórias, by considering the clues left by Machado de Assis in the book’s "Advertência" (Warning), as well as his scrutiny in selecting and organizing the texts that would be included in this project, which enable us to understand the book within a context of debates about the many possible actions women could resort to when facing the risks they suffered daily, especially in their intimate relationships.