The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford

by Stafford, Jean; Oates, Joyce Carol

• ISBN13: 9780374529932
• ISBN10: 0374529930
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-14
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

These Pulitzer Prize-winning stories represent the major short works of fiction by one of the most distinctively American stylists of her day. Jean Stafford communicates the small details of loneliness and connection, the search for freedom and the desire to belong, that not only illuminate whole lives but also convey with an elegant economy of words the sense of the place and time in which her protagonists find themselves. This volume also includes the acclaimed story "An Influx of Poets," which has never before appeared in book form.

Author Biography

Jean Stafford (1915-79) was the author of three novels as well as several children's and nonfiction books. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1970.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
Joyce Carol Oates
Author's Note	xxi
The Innocents Abroad
Maggie Meriwether's Rich Experience	3	(16)
The Children's Game	19	(16)
The Echo and the Nemesis	35	(20)
The Maiden	55	(10)
A Modest Proposal	65	(10)
Caveat Emptor	75	(18)
The Bostonians, and Other Manifestations of the American Scene
Life Is No Abyss	93	(20)
The Hope Chest	113	(8)
Polite Conversation	121	(12)
A Country Love Story	133	(14)
The Bleeding Heart	147	(24)
The Lippia Lawn	171	(8)
The Interior Castle	179	(18)
Cowboys and Indians, and Magic Mountains
The Healthiest Girl in Town	197	(22)
The Tea Time of Stouthearted Ladies	219	(12)
The Mountain Day	231	(20)
The Darkening Moon	251	(12)
Bad Characters	263	(20)
In the Zoo	283	(22)
The Liberation	305	(18)
A Reading Problem	323	(22)
A Summer Day	345	(16)
The Philosophy Lesson	361	(12)
Manhattan Island
Children Are Bored on Sunday	373	(12)
Beatrice Trueblood's Story	385	(22)
Between the Porch and the Altar	407	(8)
I Love Someone	415	(8)
Cops and Robbers	423	(14)
The Captain's Gift	437	(10)
The End of a Career	447	(18)
An Influx of Poets	465