Randall Jarrell's Book of Stories

by Jarrell, Randall; Jarrell, Randall

• ISBN13: 9781590170052
• ISBN10: 1590170059
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-06-30
• Publisher: NYRB Classics

Summary

Storytelling as a fundamental human impulse, one that announces itself at the moment, hidden in infancy, that dreams beginthis is what the poet and critic Randall Jarrell set out to illuminate in this extraordinary book. Here Jarrell presents ballads, parables, anecdotes, and legends along with some of the finest work of Chekhov, Babel, Elizabeth Bowen, Isak Dinesen, Kafka, Peter Taylor, and Katherine Anne Porter. This wonderful anthology, with its celebrated introductory essay, enlarges and deepens our perception of the storyteller's art and its central place in the world of our feelings. Contents RANDALL JARRELL: Introduction FRANZ KAFKA: A Country Doctor ANTON CHEKHOV: Gusev RAINER MARIA RILKE: The Wrecked Houses; The Big Thing ROBERT FROST: The Witch of Coos GIOVANNI VERGA: La Lupa NIKOLAI GOGOL: The Nose ELIZABETH BOWEN: Her Table Spread LUDWIG TIECK: Fair Eckbert BERTOLT BRECHT: Concerning the Infanticide, Marie Farrar LEO TOLSTOY: The Three Hermits PETER TAYLOR: What You Hear from 'Em? HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: The Fir Tree KATHERINE ANNE PORTER: He ANONYMOUS: The Red King and the Witch ANTON CHEKHOV: Rothschild's Fiddle THE BROTHERS GRIMM: Cat and Mouse in Partnership E. M. FORSTER: The Story of the Siren THE BOOK OF JONAH FRANZ KAFKA: The Bucket-Rider SAINT-SIMON: The Death of Monseigneur ISAAC BABEL: Awakening CHUANG T'ZU: Five Anecdotes HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL: A Tale of the Cavalry WILLIAM BLAKE: The Mental Traveller D. H. LAWRENCE: Samson and Delilah LEO TOLSTOY: The Porcelain Doll IVAN TURGENEV: Byezhin Prairie WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: The Ruined Cottage FRANK O'CONNOR: Peasants ISAK DINESEN: Sorrow-Acre

Author Biography

Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) was born in Tennessee and graduated from Vanderbilt. A poet, novelist, translator, and critic as well as writer for children, Jarrell was a prolific author whose best-known works include the poems collected in The Woman at the Washington Zoo and The Lost World, the academic comedyPictures from an Institution, the children’s story The Bat Poet, and Poetry and the Age, a group of essays. An influential critic who, as poetry reviewer for The Nation, helped to launch the careers of Robert Lowell and other contemporaries, Jarrell taught for many years at the University of North Carolina, where he was much revered. He died in a car accident in 1965.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
A Country Doctor	3	(8)
Franz Kafka
Gusev	11	(16)
Anton Chekhov
The Wrecked Houses; The Big Thing	27	(14)
Rainer Maria Rilke
The Witch of Coos	41	(6)
Robert Frost
La Lupa	47	(6)
Giovanni Verga
The Nose	53	(32)
Nikolai Gogol
Her Table Spread	85	(10)
Elizabeth Bowen
Fair Eckbert	95	(20)
Ludwig Tieck
Concerning the Infanticide, Marie Farrar	115	(4)
Bertolt Brecht
The Three Hermits	119	(8)
Leo Tolstoy
What You Hear from 'Em?	127	(20)
Peter Taylor
The Fir Tree	147	(10)
Hans Christian Andersen
He	157	(12)
Katherine Anne Porter
Anonymous The Red King and the Witch	169	(6)
Rothschild's Fiddle	175	(12)
Anton Chekhov
The Brothers Grimm Cat and Mouse in Partnership	187	(4)
The Story of the Siren	191	(10)
E. M. Forster
THE BOOK OF JONAH	201	(130)
The Bucket-Rider	205	(4)
Franz Kafka
The Death of Monseigneur	209	(18)
Saint-Simon
Awakening	227	(8)
Isaac Babel
Five Anecdotes	235	(6)
Chuang T'Zu
A Tale of the Cavalry	241	(10)
Hugo Von Hofmannsthal
The Mental Traveller	251	(4)
William Blake
Samson and Delilah	255	(20)
D. H. Lawrence
The Porcelain Doll	275	(6)
Leo Tolstoy
Byezhin Prairie	281	(24)
Ivan Turgenev
The Ruined Cottage	305	(16)
William Wordsworth
Peasants	321	(10)
Frank O'Connor
Sorrow-Acre	331
Isak Dinesen