Customer Reviews

Short Story Masterpieces

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The title is no lie. These are masterpieces, one and all. The editors, Warren and Erskine, display a fine discernment in their choices. Every story is great. There isn't a single dud, not even the one by Mister Sominex himself, Henry James. And the editors didn't just round up the usual suspects - their choices are fresh and surprising. Instead of Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited," they give us "Winter Dreams." Instead of Aiken's "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," they give us "Impulse." Instead of Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums," they give us "Flight." Instead of Lardner's "The Golden Honeymoon," and McCuller's "A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.," they give us "Liberty Hall" and "The Sojourner." Instead of almost anything else by Hemingway, they give us "Soldier's Home." In other words, these are not the over-anthologized pieces you would expect. And in what other American anthology would you find a story by Elizabeth Taylor? (No, not THAT Elizabeth Taylor, the other one, the British writer.) Also, at the risk of revealing that my college English Lit days were in the turbulent 70s, I must say that there's an advantage to the fact that this book was originally published in the 1950s: It predates and thus thankfully precludes the post-modernist experiments of the Barth-Barthelme-Coover school of metafiction and anti-story, a literary blind alley if ever there was one. But I do have one quibble about this book: The latest edition of this 1950s classic, the one you would buy new from Amazon, lacks the original's J.D. Salinger story. Apparently the Zen anchorite withdrew his permission to reprint "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." (Which again was a good choice by Warren and Erskine. Most short story collections of that time would have instead included Salinger's "For Esme -- with Love and Squalor.")

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.

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!

I am normally not a big fan of anthologies. I am one of those individuals who transitions through phases; that is, I will find an author and stick with that author until either the author runs out of things to write about or I run out of money from buying too many books. Sometimes though, if you have a personality such as mine, you need to simply force your self to expand your reading base (actually, that goes for everything in life from exercise, food, sex, hobbies, etc. Ye just have to keep yourself out of a rut; keep form getting stale.)

A book such as this is ideal for someone like me. This thing was first published in 1954 and I was given a copy around 1957, if the note in the front where I dated it is correct. I still have that very copy in front of me as I write this review...it is in pretty sad shape and looks as if it had been through the Crimean War and a couple of minor engagements. Anyway, this book has been pretty standard fare for many high school English classes throughout the years, and indeed, I found quite a number of copies floating around during college.

There is a review here (Click the button that lets you look at all of the reviews) which gives the reader a comprehensive list of the stories found in this work. Authors included in this book range from Hemingway, Joyce, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Maughm, Salinger, McCarthy, Thurber and on and on and on. 36 stories are recorded here representing the works of 36 different authors.

Now please keep in mind that this book was compiled and published in 1954. The younger reader of course will not find any of their favorite contemporary authors in this work...good grief, many of the new authors were not even born yet when this thing was published.

There are also a couple of other things to remember before purchasing this work. First, we live in politically correct times these days. Some of these stories ARE NOT politically correct. Secondly, not everyone who reads this book will like every story or every author represented here. I know I have my favorites and I found stories here I detested...along with their authors. That is a good thing. I should hate to think that the entire world is filled with people all liking the same thing...boring, boring, boring!

Of interest to me (but probably no one else), is the fact that I write in books. I have a lot of books and with the exception of my collectable ones; all of them have been heavily annotated, underlined and scribbled in. I have done this all of my life. This book is no different. I find it fascinating to read my thoughts concerning a particular piece as seen through the eyes of a very young man and compare them to the thoughts I have now as a rather elderly gentleman. Has my attitude, prospective and take matured over the years? Or am I seeing signs (which is more than likely) on senility as I sink into my dotage? Which every, it is interesting to me anyway.

Anyway, this is a nice collection. It is a good sampler. The reader can taste this author and that and if they do not like the flavor, then they can spit it out. If they like it, then further writings can be easily found.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

As a devotee of short stories, I was not disappointed with the stories contained within this small, almost pocket-sized book. I would have been happier had the book been full-sized in measurement but that would not present a deterrent due to the quality of the stories that are artfully presented within the pages of this surprisingly diverse anthology. Books such as this one has completely replaced the television in my home. Good books challenge the imagination in ways that television is not able to do. I also like the feel of a book over an e-book even though my Kindle finitely has its place. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in good storytelling. They are short enough to read in a single sitting but long enough that they don't leave you hanging.

I sure like this collection and recommend it. I just bought a used version on Amazon to replace a beat-up copy I had. My original copy (red), the 1954 version, has 542 pages and 36 stories. This new copy (yellow), the 1982 version, has 513 pages (inconsistent with Amazon's specs) and 35 stories (consistent). The missing story is Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut by J.D. Salinger. So I'll extract/staple those pages before recycling. Really I should just buy Salinger's Nine Stories, but it's like twice the price and fewer pages/stories, so I probably won't.

I enjoyed most of the selected reads. Nice way to spend a weekend afternoon.

CONTENTS:


Impulse Conrad Aiken
A Bottle of Milk for Mother Nelson Algren
The Egg Sherwood Anderson
Torch Song John Cheever
Witch's Money John Collier
An Outpost of Progress Joseph Conrad
The Third Prize A. E. Coppard
The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky Stephen Crane
Open Winter H. L. Davis
Barn Burning William Faulkner
Winter Dreams F. Scott Fitzgerald
Soldier's Home Ernest Hemingway
The Tree of Knowledge Henry James
The Boarding House James Joyce
Liberty Hall Ring Lardner
The Horse Dealer's Daughter D. H. Lawrence
Virga Vay & Allan Cedar Sinclair Lewis
Marriage à la Mode Katherine Mansfield
The Outstation W. Somerset Maugham
"Cruel and Barbarous Treatment" Mary McCarthy
The Sojourner Carson McCullers
The Open Window Saki
My Oedipus Complex Frank O'Connor
Innocence Sean O'Fáoláin
The Nightingales Sing Elizabeth Parsons
Flowering Judas Katherine Anne Porter
The Valiant Woman J. F. Powers
Uncle Wiggily in Connectucut J. D. Salinger
The Eighty-Yard Run Irwin Shaw
A Country Love Story Jean Stafford
Flight John Steinbeck
A Red-Letter Day Elizabeth Taylor
A Spinster's Tale Peter Taylor
You Could Look it Up James Thurber
Why I Live at the P.O. Eudora Welty
The Use of Force William Carlos Williams

36 short stories by some of the greatest names in fiction. Two are worth reading. In fact, those two are so great that they make the book worth buyingespecially if you can find a cheap used copy.
The two great stories are:
"Open Winter" by H. L. Davis, a wonderful tale of an old cowboy mentoring a younger one; and
"You Could Look It Up" by James Thurber, the funniest baseball story I've ever read.
Okay, maybe some of the others aren't terrible--though several are. But they are all at least disappointing or boring.

I am a student who was assigned to read this book. The best part of reading it was not the actual reading but the reflection on the various meanings conveyed by the stories. It took me a very long time to read because most of the stories required that you read between the lines to understand the full meaning of the story. Overall, an average book