IT HAS frequently been observed that the modern short story is to a striking degree an American creation. Certainly the first important writers in this newest (and also,quite concievably, oldest) form of fiction were Americans,and the critic who first endeavored to formulate a poetics of the short story, and who gained a worldwide reputation for his own stories, was the American Edgar Allan Poe.

...

THE CLASSIC STORIES

Edgar Allan Poe's "MS. Found in a Bottle," Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," Sherwood Anderson's "Death in the Woods," Stephen Vincent Benet's "By the Waters of Babylon"

THE GREAT WRITERS

Melville, James, Dreiser, Faulkner, Hemingway,Steinbeck, McCullers

THE LITTLE-KNOWN MASTERPIECES

Edith Wharton's "The Dilettante," Finley Peter Dunne's "Mr. Dooley on the Popularity of Firemen,"Charles M. Flandrau's "A Dead Issue," James Reid Parker's "The Archimandrite's Niece"

THE ADVENTURE OF THE GERMAN STUDENT Washington Irving

YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN Nathaniel Hawthorne

MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE Edgar Allan Poe

THE FIDDLER Herman Melville

WHAT WAS IT？ Fitz-James O'Brien

LUCK MarkTwain

THE OUTCASTSOF POKER FLAT Francis Bret Harte

THE DAMNED THING Ambrose Bieroe

THE TWO FACES Henry James

A NEW ENGLAND NUN Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

THE COURTING OF SISTER WISBY Sarah Orne Jewitt

THE DILETTANTE Edith Wharton

MASTERS OFARTS O. Henry

EFFIE WHITTLESY George Ade

MR. DOOLEY ON THE POPULARITY OF FIREMEN Finley Peter Dunne

THE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY Stephen Crane

A DEAD ISSUE Charles M. Flandrau

THE LOST PHOEBE Theodore Dreiser

FATHER IS FIRM WITH HIS AILMENTS Clarence Day

DEATH IN THE WOODS Sherwood Anderson

TO BUILDA FIRE Jack London

THE USE OF FORCE William Carlos Williams

OLD FOLKS' CHRISTMAS Ring W. Lardner

SILENT SNOW, SECRET SNOW Conrad Aiken

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON Stephen Vincent Benet

SOLDIERS OF THE REPUBLIC Dorothy Parker

MR. PREBLE GETS RID OF HIS WIFE James Thnrber

CLUNEY MC FARRAR'S HARDTACK John McNulty

THE.DARKNESS OF THE NIGHT Robert M. Coates

THE OLD PEOPLE William Faulkner

GRAPES FOR MONSIEUR CAPE Ludwig Bemelmans

A MAN OF THE WORLD Ernest Hamingway

THE HOUR OF LETDOWN E.B. White

THE RESTING PLACE Oliver La Farge

THE TOUCH OF NUTMEG MAKES IT John Collier

THE HARNESS John Steinbeck

FRIEND OF THE FAMILY Kay Boyle

THE RUMOR Erskine Caldwell

THERE WAS A YOUNG LADY OF PERTH William Saroyan

THE DOWNFALL OF FASCISM IN BLACK ANKLE COUNTY Joseph Mitchell

THE FRENCH SCARECROW William Maxwell

THE BLUE-WINGED TEAL Wallace Stegner

THE ARCHIMANDRITE'S NIECE James Reid Parker

A MOTHER'S TALE James Agee

THE NATIONAL PASTIME John Cheever

THE GIRLS IN THEIR SUMMER DRESSES Irwin Shaw

THE DEATH OF SHORTY Richard P. Bissell

GRANDMA AND THE HINDU MONK Seymour Freedgood

MADAME ZILENSKY AND THE KING OF FINLAND Carson McCullers

THE LUCID EYE IN SILVER TOWN John Updike

Copyright Notices and Acknowledgments

Selected Bibliography