American Short Story Masterpieces

This highly acclaimed collection of short stories by American writers contains only the best literary art of the past four decades. Editors Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks have selected fiction that “tells a story”–and tells it with a masterful handling of language, situation, and insight. But what is so special about this volume is that it mirrors our age, our concerns, and our lives. Whether it’s the end of a marriage, as in Bobbie Ann Manson’s “Shiloh,” or the struggle with self-esteem and weight in Andre Dubus’s “The Fat Girl,” the 36 works included her probe issues that give us that “shock of recognition” that is the hallmark of great art—wonderful, absorbing fiction that will be read and reread for decades to come.

An affordable compilation of more than a dozen of the best American short stories features tales by Hawthorne, Twain, James, Cheever, Wharton, and Cather. Contents include "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat," and "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty.

Since its first printing in 1954, this outstanding anthology has been the book of choice by teachers, students, and lovers of short fiction. Surveying stories by British and American writers in the first half of the twentieth century, 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. A truly exceptional collection of great stories, 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 . . . and twenty-five more of the century’s best stories!

Including one new story and an Index by author of every story that has ever appeared in the series, this new volume offers a "spectacular tapestry of fictional achievement" ("Entertainment Weekly").

Choice collection of 13 stories includes "Life in the Iron Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis, Zora Neale Hurston's "Sweat," plus superb fiction by Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, many others.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A seminal collection from one of the true masters of the short story. Spanning the duration of Cheever’s long and distinguished career, these sixty-one stories chronicle and encapsulate the lives of what has been called “the greatest generation.” From the early wonder and disillusionment of city life in “The Enormous Radio” to the surprising discoveries and common mysteries of suburbia in “The Housebreaker of Shady Hill” and “The Swimmer,” these are tales that have helped define the form. Featuring a preface by the Pulizter Prize-winning author, The Stories of John Cheever brings together some of the finest short stories ever written. "Cheever’s crowning achievement is the ability to be simultaneously generous and cynical, to see that the absurd and the profound can reside in the same moment, and to acknowledge both at the detriment of neither." —The Guardian

Featuring James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," the basis of the 2013 motion picture, this anthology of 30 entertaining tales includes works by Benjamin Franklin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, O. Henry, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, and others.

A collection of the best science fiction short stories of the 20th century as selected and evaluated by critically-acclaimed author Orson Scott Card. Featuring stories from the genre's greatest authors: Isaac Asimov • Arthur C. Clarke • Robert A. Heinlein • Ursula K. Le Guin • Ray Bradbury • Frederik Pohl • Harlan Ellison • George Alec Effinger • Brian W. Aldiss • William Gibson & Michael Swanwick • Theodore Sturgeon • Larry Niven • Robert Silverberg • Harry Turtledove • James Blish • George R. R. Martin • James Patrick Kelly • Karen Joy Fowler • Lloyd Biggle, Jr. • Terry Bisson • Poul Anderson • John Kessel • R.A. Lafferty • C.J. Cherryh • Lisa Goldstein • Edmond Hamilton In much of the science fiction of the past, the twenty-first century existed only in the writers’ imaginations. Now that it’s here, it’s time to take a look back at the last one hundred years in science fiction through the works of the most celebrated and acclaimed authors of the century—to see where we’ve been and just how far we’ve come. Along with a critical essay by Orson Scott Card reassessing science fiction in the twentieth century, Masterpieces includes short fiction by writers who have forged a permanent place for science fiction in the popular culture of today...and tomorrow. It offers a glimpse of the greatest works that mixed science with fiction in trying to figure out humanity’s place in the universe. Featuring bold, brave, and breathtaking stories, this definitive collection will stand the test of time in both this century and those to come.