The Norton Book of American Short Stories [Hardcover]

Peter S. Prescott (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1988

With more than 50 stories, including work by Raymond Carver and Ellen Gilchrist, The Norton Book of American Short Stories offers a diversity of style and range of emotion that reflects the fertile culture of the American experience.

The Norton Book of American Short Stories embraces many of the most famous examples of the genre—from "Young Goodman Brown" to "The Lottery"—but it also includes lesser-known stories of equal merit by many famous authors: Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker," Faulkner's "Wash," and Edith Wharton's masterly ghost story, "Pomegranate Seed."

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Intentionally avoiding any particular definition of the genre that might restrict his selection, Newsweek writer Prescott here assembles 70 stories that represent the history, range, and achievement of this distinctively American literary form, from Ben Franklin's neglected "Speech of Polly Baker" to Michael Martone's "Biograph," a first-person account of John Dillinger's last days. Except for a few already over-anthologized worksJackson's "The Lottery," Crane's "The Open Boat," Aiken's "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," for examplethese stories appear to have been chosen less for classroom use than for purely pleasurable reading. Nearly half are by authors still living. If not brilliant, this is at least a fresh, discriminating collection. Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, Mo.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

A fresh, discriminating collection. (Library Journal )

Product Details

• Hardcover: 779 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (October 17, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393026191
• ISBN-13: 978-0393026191
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,377 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the Ordinary, Standard American Short Story Anthology, April 28, 1999

By 

Thomas A. Holmes (Johnson City, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Norton Book of American Short Stories (Hardcover)

College instructors like me tend to find the same stories anthologized over and again in countless textbooks. My decision to offer the Prescott volume in a recent class provided me and my students access to stories we wouldn't ordinarily see in books specifically intended to be read in literature classes. For every familiar piece, like Walker's "Everyday Use," one finds a relatively obscure treasure, like Loos' "Liquor Makes You Smart." Sure, the standard, canonized authors are here, but instead of Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," we get "Wash"; we also get Hughes' "Slave on the Block," Lardner's "Champion," Cather's "Paul's Case," and other works not often the predictable choices for textbook editors. This collection would have been a treat to read for fun, but I consider it an interesting, challenging textbook for class, as well. I wish only that it would be more representative of American ethnic diversity--a shortcoming I overcame by assigning an additional short story collection for my students. Still, Prescott's anthology contains many enjoyable works; in my opinion, Elkin's "A Poetics for Bullies" alone should make any reader glad to have picked up this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended!, January 7, 1999

By A Customer

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This review is from: The Norton Book of American Short Stories (Hardcover)

American story collections abound, but this one's definitely a cut above. The editor manages to include a lot of the well-known selections that I want and expect in a good overview, but the book is also full of entertaining surprises. I'd never heard of Mark Twain's funny and irreverent "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime In Connecticut," but it's a much better choice than the over-anthologized "Jumping Frog." I was glad to find Conrad Aiken's chilling (no pun intended) "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" and to discover Ellen Gilchrist's wonderfully subtle "Victory Over Japan".

The format is truly worthy of a personal library, with nice creamy paper, instead of the thin show-through paper I usually associate with Norton, and a sun-filled (yes, really!) Edward Hopper painting adorning an attractive cover.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If You're a Short Story Writer, Buy This Book, June 29, 2004

By 

J. F. Stanley (San Antonio, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Norton Book of American Short Stories (Hardcover)

With "The Lemon Table" by Julian Barnes hitting 159 on the Amazon sales list, Zoetrope's online short story workshop is all a-buzz that shorts may be on the comeback. Despite the demise of what used to be a thriving magazine market for shorts, brought on decades ago on by the advent of TV, hope springs eternal.

Nevertheless it's true: the best training ground for budding novelists is writing shorts. Witness all the famous novelists in this anthology.

Prescott presents a top-knotch selection of short stories from the 19th through the 20th centuries, when the art was in its heyday. Also, his discussion in the Introduction about the short story form is excellent.