Love Stories (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Diana Secker Tesdell (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 2009 | Series: Everyman's Library Pocket Poets

A new anthology of literary love stories—the third collection in the appealing Pocket Classics format—perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Here are nineteen stories from a rich array of writers, and here is every kind of romantic entanglement: from the raw, erotic passion of D. H. Lawrence and Colette to the wickedly cynical comedy of Dorothy Parker and Roald Dahl, from the yearnings of unrequited romantic illusions in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” to the agonizing madness of jealousy in Vladimir Nabokov’s “That in Aleppo Once . . .” The objects of passion in these stories range from a glamorous silent-movie starlet in Elizabeth Bowen’s haunting “Dead Mabelle” to an emotionally opaque heart surgeon in Margaret Atwood’s “Bluebeard’s Egg.” Jhumpa Lahiri plumbs the depths of despair between a husband and wife separated by tragedy, while Lorrie Moore movingly portrays a husband and wife for whom tragedy becomes a bond. Katherine Mansfield, Tobias Wolff, and William Trevor explore the intricacies of long-term relationships, while Guy de Maupassant, Italo Calvino, and T. C. Boyle portray the initial, elemental force of love.

A collection as alluring, moving, and intoxicating as its timeless theme.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Love Stories (Everyman's Library) encompasses everything from the unabashedly erotic (Colette) to the sardonically doomed (Dorothy Parker). In literature, as in love, there's something for everyone." –Vogue

“Love in its vagrant and contradictory forms animate these classic stories from Colette, de Maupassant, D. H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dorothy Parker, and the strong contemporary tales by Tobias Wolff, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lorrie Moore, and Ali Smith. . . . Tesdell has an especially good eye for a classic writer’s most resonant story.” –Cleveland Plain Dealer

“This is a book about love in which none of the stories lapses into sentimentality. . . . Wonderfully amusing . . . fabulously funny . . . I read this book with a mounting sense of marvel. It is a triumph of the anthologist’s skill: moving, artful, unceasingly entertaining. . . . This is a book to cherish, to give to your lover, and to escape joyfully into at the first sign of flying saucers.” –The Spectator

“A more cynical celebration than Valentine’s Day, which exists chiefly to sell greeting cards and get absent-minded men in trouble, is hard to imagine. Fortunately, Diana Secker Tesdell and Everyman’s Pocket Classics offer an antidote to this coarsening of human emotion. Love Stories, a collection of tales by notable authors past and present, show yet again the capacity of literature—in the form of clear-sighted sensibility and the application of mildly elevated language—to renew the weariest heart. . . . The book as a whole … is a matter of deep reading pleasure, refracting the awful beauty and power of love in varied aspects, times, cultures.” –South Florida Sun-Sentinel

“A marvelous Valentine’s Day gift for literary lovers.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About the Author

Diana Secker Tesdell is the editor of the Everyman’s Pocket Classics anthologies Christmas Stories, Dog Stories, Cat Stories, New York Stories, Bedtime Stories, Stories of Motherhood, and Stories of the Sea, and of the Everyman's Library Pocket Poet anthology Lullabies and Poems for Children.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Everyman's Library (January 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307270874
• ISBN-13: 978-0307270870
• Product Dimensions: 4.9 x 1.2 x 7.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #380,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely Delightful, February 10, 2010

By 

P. Strayer (Oakland CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love Stories (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) (Hardcover)

A book to savor before bedtime every night. You'll find yourself reading several stories at a time, because they're that good. Unexpected juxtapositions. Thanks for making these marvelous little Everyman stories collections. I also have Christmas Stories. I think I'll try Detective Stories and Sea Stories next.

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding selection of 19 Love Stories in a high quality Everyman's Library edition, August 25, 2011

By 

Phil in Magnolia - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Stories (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) (Hardcover)

First I must admit that I am a great fan of the Everyman's Library books. They are wonderful editions to own.

This particular book, one of Everyman's "Pocket Classics" issues, is slightly smaller in size than most hardcover books; it fits very nicely in your hand, and it is beautifully produced and handsome to hold, either with or without the dust jacket (the book itself is bound in cloth and looks great without the jacket).

This edition contains 19 stories, varying in length from 4 pages ("Immortality", by Yasunari Kawabata), to (44 pages ("Terrific Mother", by Lorrie Moore). Authors included are Guy De Maupassant, Italo Calvino, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Elizabeth Bowen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Colette, D. H. Lawrence, Roald Dahl, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Yasunari Kawabata, Dorothy Parker, Katherine Mansfield, Tobias Wolff, Margaret Atwood, Vladimir Nabokov, William Trevor, Jhumpa Lahiri, Lorrie Moore, and Ali Smith. There are no special introductions to the book or to the stories, simply the stories themselves, presented one after the other, with acknowledgements at the end stating where they first appeared.

I think that this is a very nice book to present to a loved one, or for yourself.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love Stories, March 31, 2009

By 

Joseph A. Petersam "Patricia" (Porter Ranch, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Love Stories (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) (Hardcover)

This book was reviewed by our book club. We found it to be worth discussion. The authors are international and the short stories very different than expected. A whole different outlook on love stories.