The Best American Short Stories of the Century

by Updike, John

• ISBN13: 9780395843673
• ISBN10: 0395843677
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-04-20
• Publisher: Houghton Miff

Summary

Since the series' inception in 1915, the annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories have launched literary careers, showcased the most compelling stories of each year, and confirmed for all time the significance of the short story in our national literature. Now THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY brings together the best -- fifty-six extraordinary stories that represent a century's worth of unsurpassed achievements in this quintessentially American literary genre. This expanded edition includes a new story from The Best American Short Stories 1999 to round out the century, as well as an index including every story published in the series. Of all the writers whose work has appeared in the series, only John Updike has been represented in each of the last five decades, from his first appearance, in 1959, to his most recent, in 1998. Updike worked with coeditor Katrina Kenison to choose the finest stories from the years since 1915. The result is "extraordinary . . . A one-volume literary history of this country's immeasurable pains and near-infinite hopes" (Boston Globe).

Author Biography

John Updike is the author of numerous books He has won the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1998 he received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Katrina Kenison is the series editor of The Best American Short Stories.

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Introduction	xv
John Updike
1915 Zelig	1	(6)
Benjamin Rosenblatt
1916 Little Selves	7	(11)
Mary Lerner
1917 A Jury of Her Peers	18	(20)
Susan Glaspell
1920 The Other Woman	38	(7)
Sherwood Anderson
1922 The Golden Honeymoon	45	(15)
Ring Lardner
1923 Blood-Burning Moon	60	(8)
Jean Toomer
1927 The Killers	68	(9)
Ernest Hemingway
1929 Double Birthday	77	(23)
Willa Cather
1929 Wild Plums	100	(5)
Grace Stone Coates
1930 Theft	105	(6)
Katherine Anne Porter
1931 That Evening Sun Go Down	111	(16)
William Faulkner
1931 Here We Are	127	(9)
Dorothy Parker
1933 Crazy Sunday	136	(17)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1934 My Dead Brother Comes to America	153	(6)
Alexander Godin
1935 Resurrection of a Life	159	(10)
William Saroyan
1938 Christmas Gift	169	(10)
Robert Penn Warren
1939 Bright and Morning Star	179	(32)
Richard Wright
1940 The Hitch-Hikers	211	(13)
Eudora Welty
1943 The Peach Stone	224	(17)
Paul Horgan
1944 ``That in Aleppo Once...''	241	(9)
Vladimir Nabokov
1947 The Interior Castle	250	(14)
Jean Stafford
1948 Miami-New York	264	(17)
Martha Gellhorn
1948 The Second Tree from the Corner	281	(5)
E. B. White
1949 The Farmer's Children	286	(9)
Elizabeth Bishop
1951 Death of a Favorite	295	(17)
J. F. Powers
1951 The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin	312	(13)
Tennessee Williams
1955 The Country Husband	325	(23)
John Cheever
1957 Greenleaf	348	(21)
Flannery O'Connor
1960 The Ledge	369	(15)
Lawrence Sargent Hall
1960 Defender of the Faith	384	(27)
Philip Roth
1962 Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers	411	(27)
Stanley Elkin
1964 The German Refugee	438	(12)
Bernard Malamud
1967 Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?	450	(16)
Joyce Carol Oates
1968 The Rotifer	466	(11)
Mary Ladd Gavell
1969 Gold Coast	477	(16)
James Alan McPherson
Isaac Bashevis Singer 1970 The Key	493	(10)
1973 A City of Churches	503	(4)
Donald Barthelme
1975 How to Win	507	(13)
Rosellen Brown
1976 Roses, Rhododendron	520	(13)
Alice Adams
1978 A Young Woman Speaks	533	(6)
Harold Brodkey
1979 A Silver Dish	539	(26)
Saul Bellow
1980 Gesturing	565	(11)
John Updike
1981 The Shawl	576	(5)
Cynthia Ozick
1983 Where I'm Calling From	581	(14)
Raymond Carver
1986 Janus	595	(5)
Ann Beattie
1987 The Way We Live Now	600	(16)
Susan Sontag
1987 The Things They Carried	616	(17)
Tim O'Brien
1989 Meneseteung	633	(19)
Alice Munro
1990 You're Ugly, Too	652	(19)
Lorrie Moore
1993 I Want to Live!	671	(17)
Thom Jones
1994 In the Gloaming	688	(17)
Alice Elliott Dark
1994 Proper Library	705	(15)
Carolyn Ferrell
1995 Birthmates	720	(15)
Gish Jen
1997 Soon	735	(19)
Pam Durban
1998 The Half-Skinned Steer	754	(15)
Annie Proulx
1999 The Best Girlfriend You Never Had	769	(20)
Pam Houston
Biographical Notes	789	(8)
Index of the Best American Short Stories, 1915-1999	797