Short Story Masterpieces: 35 Classic American and British Stories from the First Half of the 20th Century

By Albert (editors) Warren, Robert Penn and Erskine

Book Overview

A truly exceptional collection of thirty-five great stories from some of the most celebrated writers of the first half of the twentieth century

Short stories can be funny, pathetic, frightening, uplifting, nostalgic, beautiful--and it is just this variety that makes them the popular and satisfying reading they are. Here are thirty-five of the best stories by British and American writers in the first half of the twentieth century, in an outstanding anthology that ranges in kind from the humor of James Thurber and Ring Lardner to the irony of Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce.

Each story is different from every other--but each bears the stamp of unmistakable greatness, including:

- "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" by Stephen Crane
- "The Horse Dealer's Daughter" by D. H. Lawrence
- "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner
- "The Sojourner" by Carson McCullers
- "The Open Window" by Saki
- "Flowering Judas" by Katherine Anne Porter
- "The Boarding House" by James Joyce
- "Soldier's Home" by Ernest Hemingway
- "The Tree of Knowledge" by Henry James
- "Why I Live at the P.O." by Eudora Welty

Editors Robert Penn Warren and Albert Erskine selected stories that broke new ground and challenged the imagination with their style, subject matter, or tone: the unforgettable, enduring works that shaped the literature of our time.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440378648
• ISBN13: 9780440378648
• Release Date: March 1954
• Publisher: Dell
• Length: 528 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Short Stories

This is a wonderful book to take with you on an airplane or on your daily subway ride! It is exactly what I was looking for after being tired of the 500+ page books everyone is publishing these days which take up so much time in a busy life!

A word on these stories over fifty years after publication date

This mass- market collection of stories was published in 1954. It was thus an educational tool for many of us who wanted to know the 'story as a form'. It has some truly wonderful stories, Hemingway's 'Soldier's Home' Faulkner's 'Barn Burning' Joyce's 'The Boarding House' Sherwood Anderson's ' Egg', and one of my all - time favorite's Irwin Shaw's 'Eighty- Yard Run'. It is a very rich and rewarding collection. Had a similar anthology been published today it would include other names,certainly Salinger, Raymond Carver, and my all- time favorite short story- writer Isaac Bashevis Singer.