The Art of the Short Story

This affordably-priced collection presents masterpieces of short fiction from 52 of the greatest story writers of all time. From Sherwood Anderson to Virginia Woolf, this anthology encompasses a rich global and historical mix of the very best works of short fiction and presents them in a way students will find accessible, engaging, and relevant. The book’s unique integration of biographical and critical background gives students a more intimate understanding of the works and their authors.

Contents:
Part I. Introduction. The art of the short story.– Part II. Stories [A-J]. Chinua Achebe: Dead men’s path ; Author’s perspective, Achebe: modern Africa as the crossroads of culture — Sherwood Anderson: Hands ; Author’s perspective, Anderson: Words not plot give form to a short story — Margaret Atwood: Happy endings ; Author’s perspective, Atwood: On the Canadian identity — James Baldwin: Sonny’s blues ; Author’s perspective, Baldwin: Race and the African-American writer — Jorge Luis Borges: The garden of forking paths ; Author’s perspective, Borges: Literature as experience — Albert Camus: The guest ; Author’s perspective, Camus: Revolution and repression in Algeria — Raymond Carver: Cathedral ; A small, good thing ; Author’s perspective, Carver: Commonplace but precise language — Willa Cather: Paul’s case ; Author’s perspective, Cather: Art as the process of simplification — John Cheever: The swimmer ; Author’s perspective, Cheever: Why I write short stories — Anton Chekhov: The lady with the pet dog ; Misery ; Author’s perspective, Chekhov: Natural description and “The center of gravity” — Kate Chopin: The storm ; The story of an hour ; Author’s perspective, Chopin: My writing method — Sandra Cisneros: Barbie-Q ; Author’s perspective, Cisneros: Bilingual style — Joseph Conrad: The secret sharer ; Author’s perspective, Conrad: The condition of art — Stephen Crane: The open boat ; Author’s perspective, Crane: The sinking of the Commodore — Ralph Ellison: A party down at the square ; Author’s perspective, Ellison: Race and fiction — William Faulkner: Barn burning ; A rose for Emily ; Author’s perspective, Faulkner: The human heart in conflict with itself — F. Scott Fitzgerald: Babylon revisited ; Author’s perspective, Fitzgerald: On his own literary aims — Gustave Flaubert: A simple heart ; Author’s perspective, Flaubert: The labor of style — Gabriel García Marquez: A very old man with enormous wings ; Author’s perspective, García Marquez: My beginnings as a writer — Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The yellow wallpaper ; Author’s perspective, Gilman: Why I wrote “The yellow wallpaper” — Nikolai Gogol: The overcoat ; Author’s perspective, Gogol: On realism — Nadine Gordimer: A company of laughing faces ; Author’s perspective, Gordimer: How the short story differs from the novel — Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown ; The birthmark ; Author’s perspective, Hawthorne: On the public failure of his early stories — Ernest Hemingway: A clean, well-lighted place ; Author’s perspective, Hemingway: One true sentence — Zora Neale Hurston: Sweat ; Author’s perspective, Hurston: Eatonville when you look at it — Shirley Jackson: The lottery ; Author’s perspective, Jackson: The public reception of “The lottery” — Henry James: The real thing ; Author’s perspective, James: The mirror of a consciousness — Ha Jin: Saboteur ; Author’s perspective, Jin: Deciding to write in English — James Joyce : Araby ; The dead ; Author’s perspective, Joyce: Epiphanies. Contents: Part II[ Cont.]. Stories [K-W]. Franz Kafka: Before the law ; The metamorphosis ; Author’s perspective, Kafka: Discussing The metamorphosis — D.H. Lawrence: Odour of Chrysanthemums ; The rocking-horse winner ; Author’s perspective, Lawrence: The novel is the bright book of life — Ursula K. Le Guin: the ones who walk away from Omelas ; Author’s perspective, Le Guin: On “The ones who walk away from Omelas” — Doris Lessing: A woman on a roof ; Author’s perspective, Lessing: My beginnings as a writer — Jack London: To build a fire ; Author’s perspective, London: Defending the factuality of “To build a fire” — Katherine Mansfield: Miss Brill ; The garden-party ; Author’s perspective, Mansfield: On “The garden-party” — Bobbie Ann Mason: Shiloh ; Author’s perspective, Mason: Minimalist fiction — Guy de Maupassant: The necklace ; Author’s perspective, Maupassant: The realist method — Herman Melville: Bartleby, the scrivener : a story of Wall-Street ; Author’s perspective, Melville: American literature — Yukio Mishima: Patriotism ; Author’s perspective, Mishima: Physical courage and death — Alice Munro: How I met my husband ; Author’s perspective, Munro: How I write short stories — Joyce Carol Oates: where are you going, where have you been? ; Author’s perspective, Oates: Productivity and the critics — Flannery O’Connor: A good man is hard to find ; Revelation ; Author’s perspective, O’Connor: The element of suspense in “A good man is hard to find” — Edgar Allan Poe: The fall of the House of Usher ; The Tell-tale heart ; Author’s perspective, Poe: The tale and its effect — Katherine Anne Porter: Flowering Judas ; Author’s perspective, Porter: Writing “Flowering Judas” — Leslie Marmon Silko: The man to send rain clouds ; Author’s perspective, Silko: the basis of “The man to send rain clouds” — Isaac Bashevis singer: Gimpel the Fool ; Author’s perspective, Singer: The character of Gimpel — Leo Tolstoy: The death of Ivan Ilych ; Author’s perspective, Tolstoy: The moral responsibility of art — John Updike: Separating ; Author’s perspective, Why write? — Alice Walker: Everyday use ; Author’s perspective, Walker: The Black woman writer in America — Eudora Welty: Why I live at the P.O. ; Author’s perspective, Welty: The plot of the short story — Edith Wharton: Roman fever ; Author’s perspective, Wharton: The subject of short stories — Virginia Woolf: A haunted house ; Author’s perspective, Woolf: Women and fiction. Contents: Part III. Writing. The elements of short fiction — Writing about fiction — Critical approaches to literature. Formalist criticism: Light and darkness in “Sonny’s Blues” / Michael Clark — Biographical criticism: Chekhov’s attitude to romantic love / Virginia Llewellyn Smith — Historical criticism: The Argentine context of Borges’s fantastic fiction / John King — Psychological criticism: The father-figure in “The tell-tale heart” / Daniel Hoffman — Mythological criticism: Myth in Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” / Edmond Volpe — “Sociological criticism: Money and labor in “The rocking-horse winner” / Daniel P. Watkins — Gender criticism: Gender and pathology in “The yellow wallpaper” / Juliann Fleenor — Reader-response criticism: An Eskimo “A Rose for Emily” / Stanley Fish — Deconstructionist criticism: The death of the author / Roland Barthes — Cultural studies: What is cultural studies? / Makr Bauerlein. Part IV. Glossary of literary terms.