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 of the best - fifty-five extraordinary stories that represent a century's worth of unsurpassed accomplishments in this quintessentially American literary genre. Here are the stories that have endured the test of time: masterworks by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Saroyan, Flannery O'Connor, John Cheever, Eudora Welty, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Cynthia Ozick, and scores of others. These are the writers who have shaped and defined the landscape of the American short story, who have unflinchingly explored all aspects of the human condition, and whose works will continue to speak to us as we enter the next century. Their artistry is represented splendidly in these pages. THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series has also always been known for making literary discoveries, and discovery proved to be an essential part of selecting the stories for this volume too. Collections from years past yielded a rich harvest of surprises, stories that may have been forgotten but still retain their relevance and luster. The result is a volume that not only gathers some of the most significant stories of our century between two covers but resurrects a handful of lost literary gems as well. Of all the great writers whose work has appeared in the series, only John Updike's contributions have spanned five consecutive decades, from his first appearance, in 1959. Updike worked with coeditor Katrina Kenison to choose stories from each decade that meet his own high standards of literary quality.
"Finding wonderful stories that you don't already know is one of this collection's great pleasures... " The New York Times
"...a thrillingly energized argument for the enduring vitality of big ideas in small packages." Entertainment Weekly
Table of Contents:
Foreword Introduction By John Updike
Zelig By Benjamin Rosenblatt
Little Selves By Mary Lerner
A Jury of Her Peers By Susan Glaspell
The Other Woman By Sherwood Anderson
The Golden Honeymoon By Ring Lardner
Blood-Burning Moon By Jean Toomer
The Killers By Ernest Hemingway
Double Birthday By Willa Cather
Wild Plums By Grace Stone Coates
Theft By Katherine Anne Porter
That Evening Sun Go Down By William Faulkner
Here We Are By Dorothy Parker
Crazy Sunday By F. Scott Fitzgerald
My Dead Brother Comes to America By Alexander Godin
Resurrection of a Life By William Saroyan
Christmas Gift By Robert Penn Warren
Bright and Morning Star By Richard Wright
The Hitch-Hikers By Eudora Welty
The Peach Stone By Paul Horgan
That in Aleppo Once ... By Vladimir Nabokov
The Interior Castle By Jean Stafford
Miami - New York By Martha Gellhorn
The Second Tree from the Corner By E. B. White
The Farmer's Children By Elizabeth Bishop
Death of a Favorite By J. F. Powers
The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin By Tennessee Williams
The Country Husband By John Cheever
Greenleaf By Flannery O'Connor
The Ledge By Lawrence Sargent Hall
Defender of the Faith By Philip Roth
Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers By Stanley Elkin
The German Refugee By Bernard Malamud
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? By Joyce Carol Oates
The Rotifer By Mary Ladd Gavell
Gold Coast By James Alan McPherson
The Key By Isaac Bashevis Singer
A City of Churches By Donald Barthelme
How to Win By Rosellen Brown
Roses, Rhododendron By Alice Adams
Verona: A Young Woman Speaks By Harold Brodkey
A Silver Dish By Saul Bellow
Gesturing By John Updike
The Shawl By Cynthia Ozick
Where I'm Calling From By Raymond Carver
Janus By Ann Beattie
The Way We Live Now By Susan Sontag
The Things They Carried By Tim O'Brien
Meneseteung By Alice Munro
You're Ugly, Too By Lorrie Moore
I Want to Live! By Thom Jones
In the Gloaming By Alice Elliott Dark
Proper Library By Carolyn Ferrell
Birthmates By Gish Jen
Soon By Pam Durban
The Half-Skinned Steer By Annie Proulx
Biographical Notes
John Updike is the author of numerous books, including the acclaimed "Rabbit" novels, Couples, In the Beauty of the Lilies, and Bech at Bay. 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.