Great American Short Stories

This outstanding collection of short stories by twenty-six of America's most celebrated writers provides a comprehensive survey of the origin and growth of this literary form.

The selections in this volume represent each author working at the very height of his or her powers, producing memorable, brilliant fiction. Each story, too, is illustrative of the growth of the short story form, done to perfection by the writers who left their indelible mark on our national literary heritage.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving
• Young Goodman Brown, by Nathanial Hawthorne
• The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe
• Bartleby the Scrivener, by Herman Melville
• Baker's Bluejay Yarn, by Mark Twain
• Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte
• The Boarded Window, by Ambrose Bierce
• The Real Thing, by Henry James
• A Village Singer, by Mary Wilkins Freeman
• Mrs. Ripley's Trip, by Hamlin Garland
• A Municipal Report, by O. Henry
• Roman Fever, by Edith Wharton
• The Open Boat, by Stephen Crane
• Unlighted Lamps, by Sherwood Anderson
• The Man Who Saw through Heaven, by Wilbur Daniel Steele
• Silent Snow, Secret Snow, by Conrad Aiken
• He, by Katherine Anne Porter
• The Catbird Seat, by James Thurber
• The Little Wife, by William March
• Wash, by William Faulkner
• The Snake, by John Steinbeck
• To the Mountains, by Paul Horgan
• Over the River and Through the Wood, by John O'Hara
• The Wind and Snow of Winter, by Walkter Van Tilburg Clark
• Powerhouse, by Eudora Welty
• In Greenwich There Are Many Gravelled Walks, by Hortense Calisher