Customer Reviews

The World's Greatest Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Neither Amazon nor Dover seem to list the actual contents of this excellent collection of stories on Amazon. You can find the Table of Contents at Dover's website.

This collection edited by James Daly includes:

Herman Melville--U.S.A.
Bartleby the Scrivener (1853)

Guy de Maupassant--France
The Necklace (1884)

Leo Tolstoy--Russia
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886)

Rudyard Kipling--England
The Man Who Would Be King (1888)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman--U.S.A.
The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis--Brazil
The Fortune-Teller (1896)

Anton Chekhov--Russia
The Lady with the Toy Dog (1899)

Rainer Maria Rilke--Germany
How Old Timofei Died with a Song (1900)

Thomas Mann--Germany
The Path to the Cemetery (1901)

D. H. Lawrence--England
The Prussian Officer (1914)

James Joyce--Ireland
Araby (1914)

Luigi Pirandello--Italy
Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza, Her Son-in-Law (1917)

Virginia Woolf--England
The Mark on the Wall (1921)

Franz Kafka--Czechoslovakia
A Hunger Artist (1922)

Katherine Mansfield--England
The Garden-Party (1922)
[Bevan Kay in a Comment correctly points out that Mansfield was
from New Zealand; she live the last 14 years of her life in England,
where this story was written and published.]


Yasunari Kawabata--Japan
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket (1924)

Ernest Hemingway--U.S.A.
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (1926)

Chinua Achebe--Nigeria
The Sacrificial Egg (1959)

John Updike--U.S.A.
A & P (1961)

Jorge Luis Borges--Argentina
Borges and I (1962)

Excellent reading, interesting writers, well worth the price in delivering pleasure at an affordable price.

Robert C. Ross 2009

Dover books are unsurpassed for economy and content - $3.50 for a collection of 20 stories from all over the world within the past two centuries. Would be a great teaching resource, as many of these stories are used in curricula for middle/high school and college. Table of contents lists author, country of origin and year written. Relatively diverse selection of authors, but also includes standard anthology fare like Hemingway and Woolf. Stories included:

Bartleby the Scrivener (1853, Melville)
The Necklace (1884, de Maupassant)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886, Tolstoy)
The Man Who Would Be King (1888, Kipling)
The Yellow Wallpaper (1892, C.P. Gilman)
The Fortune-Teller (1896, Machado de Assis)
The Lady with the Toy Dog (1899, Chekhov)
How Old Timofei Died with a Song (1900, Rilke)
The Path to the Cemetery (1901, Mann)
The Prussian Officer (1914, D.H. Lawrence)
Araby (1914, Joyce)
Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza, Her Son-in-Law (1917, Pirandello)
The Mark on the Wall (1921, Woolf)
A Hunger Artist (1922, Kafka)
The Garden-Party (1922, Mansfield)
The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket (1924, Kawabata)
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (1926, Hemingway)
The Sacrifical Egg (1959, Achebe)
A & P (1961, Updike)
Borges and I (1962, Borges)

It is always worthwhile to keep a few paperback short story collections at hand to pop into a purse or carry-on bag. This collection is very good: diverse, well chosen, and memorable. These Dover Thrift Books are a great bargain as well.

The quality of the the stories selected for this work is very high. Short stories are ubiqitous enough but a superior collection like this is rare, indeed. The strengths of each author are evident. Each presents a new world for the reader to walk through. The contest between the Prussian Captain and the soldier is exciting as well as grotesque. Are we rooting for one or the other? Does Kafka's hunger artist cause sympathy or revulsion in the reader? Are we secretly happy to see the hunger artist die? And did you ask yourself, Do we not get what we deserve, when reading The Necklace? There are so many things we read that are less than satisfying. For me The World's Greatest Short Stories is not one of them.

Good writing, good stories. Has a lot of heavy hitters in this volume, from Melville to Achebe. 20 stories from all around the world and all in one affordable volume. Excellent. I love reading and writing short stories. I have a website for my favorites: [...] I write scifi and fantasy short stories. :)

This book is perfect for anyone hoping to enjoy short stories, brush up on short story technique, or reread old favorites.

I am an indie author whose published non-fiction and fiction short stories, which are available via Amazon, Apple iTunes and Sony. I ordered this book, to hone my fiction writing skills.

This book is a collection of the best short stories from Europe and America. The stories are masterfully told and they represent writing at its best. The tales are melancholic, but the narration is superb. If you enjoy short stories, then you would appreciate the art of storytelling which is superbly demonstrated through this collection.

This low cost thrift edition is a Godsend, for those who seek good literature at low prices.

It seems most anthologies of the "Best" of anything, are the same as the ones that went before and will go after, Nothing interesting here, and the physical quality of the book is not great.

These Dover books are always a prize. Always priced right, interesting, durable and attractive covers with priceless selections. Can't go wrong any way you look at them. ~Bruin~

There must be something lost in translation - at least for me. But it is a nice collection just the same.