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Short Stories

Contemporary writers seem to take pride in their ability to author voluminous novels. Even when they write short stories, they're often too long, and they're seldom as interesting as they ought to be. The New Yorker may be a good measure for what's hip and likely to make a lot of money, but if they're willing to publish a short work it's also likely that the story is pretentious and probably in poor taste.

Some of the best short stories are detective fictions. Genre-specific works don't usually qualify as high art, but the ability of men like G.K. Chesterton, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to distill a comprehensive plot with fully-realized characters into a few pages borders on genius. That Chesterton and Doyle could do it dozens of times with the same characters and keep readers interested is testament to their powerful imaginations and consummate creativity.

There are plenty of fine literary short stories, of course, though most were written between 1860 and 1960. It took awhile for the short story to grow up as a form, and it's zenith was relatively short-lived. Mark Twain is arguably the best American short story writer, capable of evoking extreme pathos and wild humor simultaneously. His best stories are basically literate presentations of oral-tradition Americana, crafted with extreme care but seemingly careless in their dialect-ridden roughness.

Many writers' excellent short stories are often overshadowed by a single brilliant longer work. J.D. Salinger, for example, wrote some of the best short stories of the 20th century (especially among those written to anartistically-inclined upper-middle class), yet no one remembers Seymour: An Introduction or To Esme, With Love and Squalor because the only Salinger work they've ever read or heard of is Catcher in the Rye.

In some ways, short stories are a better gauge of an author's ability than his novels. Short stories require a precision of style, a tightness of plot, and a coherence of vision that novelists can get away with applying more loosely. It's important, therefore, to keep them short; otherwise, you're kind of missing the point.

Novellas are the murky territory between short stories and novels. They aren't short stories, however, just novels that are easier to read or fit in your back pocket. We've limited our selection in this category to actual short stories. If you're a writer (or want to be), short stories are some of the best material you can read to improve your own craft. If you're simply an avid reader, they make some of the most enjoyable fiction available.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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Accordion Crimes
by E. Annie Proulx
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
A Hercule Poirot Mystery #33
by Agatha Christie
from William Morrow & Company
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Adventures of Menahem-Mendl
by Sholom Aleichem
from G.P. Putnam's Sons
for Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrated by Richard Lebenson
from Reader's Digest
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrated by Sidney Paget
100th Anniversary from SeaWolf Press
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$10.95
Annotated Sherlock Holmes Volumes 1 & 2
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
from Clarkson Potter Publishers
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Art of the Short Story
from Pearson Education
for 10th-Adult
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Best of Father Brown
by G. K. Chesterton
from Everyman's Library
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.95
Best Short Stories of O. Henry
by O. Henry
from Modern Library
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$22.95 $14.00 (1 in stock)
Billy Budd
Signet Classics
by Herman Melville
from Signet Classics
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories
by Herman Melville
from Bantam Books
Realistic Nautical Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.95
Bold Dragoon
by Washington Irving, illustrated by James Daugherty
1960 printing from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
for 6th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Bret Harte: Stories of the Early West
by Bret Harte
from Platt and Munk Publishers
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Candide, Zadig and Selected Stories
by Voltaire
from Signet Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$3.50
Celebrated Jumping Frog and Other Stories
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Mark Twain
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
by Mark Twain, illustrated by Harold Berson
from Franklin Watts
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Christmas Carol and Other Stories
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Arthur Rackham
from Reader's Digest
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Civil War Hospital Sketches
by Louisa May Alcott
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.95
Civil War Stories
by Ambrose Bierce
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00
Classic Stories of Edgar Allen Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Barnes & Noble
for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Modern Library
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$25.00
Complete Father Brown Stories
by G. K. Chesterton
from Wordsworth Classics
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.99
Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
by Ernest Hemingway
Finca Vig Ia Ed from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$22.00
Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
by Ernest Hemingway
Finca Vigia Ed from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Complete Stories of Edgar Allen Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from International Collectors Library
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
by Flannery O'Connor
33rd edition from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$20.00
Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Barnes & Noble
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Complete Tales of Uncle Remus
by Joel Chandler Harris
from Houghton Mifflin
Animal Fantasy for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$35.00
Complete Tales of Uncle Remus
by Joel Chandler Harris, retold by Julius Lester, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
from Dial Press
Animal Fantasy for 7th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$50.00
Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories
by Sarah Orne Jewett
from Signet Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.95
Cricket on the Hearth
Dover Thrift Editions
by Charles Dickens
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00
Cricket on the Hearth
by Charles Dickens
from Mcloughlin Bros. Inc
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Dorothy L. Sayers: The Complete Stories
by Dorothy L. Sayers
from Harper & Row
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$19.99
Dubliners
by James Joyce
from Oxford University
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.95
Dubliners
by James Joyce
from Oxford University
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.95
ECL: Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (abridged)
Educator Classic Library #7
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrated by Don Irwin
from Classic Press
for 8th-Adult
in Educator Classic Library (Location: VIN-ECL)
Encantadas and Other Stories
by Herman Melville
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Enter Jeeves
by P. G. Wodehouse
from Dover Publications
Humor for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$9.95
Father Brown Stories Part II
by G. K. Chesterton
from Ignatius Press
Mystery for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$23.50
Favorite Father Brown Stories
Dover Thrift Editions
by G. K. Chesterton
from Dover Publications
Mystery for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$5.50
Fidelity: Five Stories
by Wendell Berry
from Pantheon Books
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$16.95
Fifty Great Short Stories
by Milton Crane
from Bantam Books
for 9th-Adult
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$7.99
Five Great Short Stories
Dover Thrift Editions
by Anton Chekhov
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$4.00
Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works
by Flannery O'Connor
from Library of America
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$40.00
Ghostly Tales and Eerie Poems
Illustrated Junior Library Series 4
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Ghostly Tales and Eerie Poems
Illustrated Junior Library Series 3
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Gifts of the Child Christ - 2 Volume Set
by George MacDonald
from Eerdmans
for 5th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Great American Short Stories
from Dover Publications
for 7th-Adult
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$8.00 $4.00 (1 in stock)
Great English Short Stories
by Paul Negri, ed.
from Dover Publications
for 10th grade-adult
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$6.00
Great Outdoor Adventures
by Outdoor Life editors, illustrated by Ray Pioch
from E.P. Dutton & Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Anthology Collections (Location: VIN-ANTH)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Great Pirate Stories
by Joseph L. French
2nd Printing, 1923 from Brentano's Publishers
for 8th-Adult
in Pirates (Location: HISV-PIRATE)
Heart of the West
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by O. Henry
from Reader's Digest
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Heart Songs
by E. Annie Proulx
from Charles Scribner's Sons
Realistic Fiction for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Illustrated Man
by Ray Bradbury
from Simon and Schuster
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$10.99
In Our Time
by Ernest Hemingway
from Charles Scribner's Sons
for 11th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.50 (1 in stock)
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
First Edition from Mariner Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Journey into Christmas
by Bess Streeter Aldrich, illustrated by James Aldrich
from Appleton-Century-Crofts
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Jungle Books
Macmillan Classics
by Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by Robert Shore
from Macmillan
Animal Stories for 7th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Kreutzer Sonata
Dover Thrift Editions
by Leo Tolstoy
from Dover Publications
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$7.00 $4.00 (1 in stock)
Labors of Hercules
A Hercule Poirot Mystery #26
by Agatha Christie
2011 Reissue from William Morrow & Company
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Last of the Old West
by George Mecklenburg
from The Capital Book Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Leaving Home
by Garrison Keillor
1st edition from Viking Press
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Washington Irving
from Reader's Digest
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Long Valley
by John Steinbeck, Introduction and Notes by John H. Timmerman
from Penguin Books
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
Lord Peter
by Dorothy L. Sayers
from Harper & Row
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Lord Peter
by Dorothy Sayers
Reprint from Harper & Row
for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$18.99
Lord Peter
by Dorothy Sayers
Reprint from Avon Books
for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Man Who Knew Too Much
by G. K. Chesterton
from Dover Publications
Mystery for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$8.95
Man Who Knew Too Much
by G. K. Chesterton
from Waking Lion Press
Mystery for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Master and Man and Other Stories
Penguin Classics
by Leo Tolstoy
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Fiction for 11th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$13.00
Men O'War: Stories from the Glory Days of Sail
by Mike Ashley, editor
from Castle Books
for 10th-Adult
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
A Miss Marple Mystery #13
by Agatha Christie
from William Morrow & Company
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.99
Miz Lil and the Chronicles of Grace
by Walter Wangerin
from Rabbit Room Press
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$15.95
Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
Dover Thrift Editions
by Mark Twain
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$2.50
New Annotated Sherlock Holmes Volume 1
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Non-slipcased edition from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
New Annotated Sherlock Holmes Volume 2
by Arthur Conan Doyle
from W. W. Norton and Co.
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Nine Stories
by J.D. Salinger
from Back Bay Books
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Of Other Worlds
by C. S. Lewis
Reissue from HarperOne
for 8th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$13.99
Old Country
by Sholem Aleichem
from Crown Publishers
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Plain Tales from the Hills
by Rudyard Kipling
Reissue from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$11.95
Plays and Stories of Chekhov
by Anton Chekhov
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Portable American Realism Reader
by James Nagel and Tom Quirk, editors
from Penguin Books
for 9th-Adult
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Portable Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$22.00
Red-Headed League and The Adventure of the Speckled Band
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrated by Paul Spina
from Franklin Watts
for 6th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Return of Sherlock Holmes
Reader's Digest World's Best Reading
by Arthur Conan Doyle
from Reader's Digest
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Return of Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle, Illustrated by Sidney Paget
1905 Illustrated from SeaWolf Press
for 8th-Adult
in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW)
$10.95
Sanditon & Other Stories
Everyman's Library
by Jane Austen
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Romantic Realistic Fiction for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$30.00
Secret Sharer and Other Stories
by Joseph Conrad
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 $3.00 (1 in stock)
Selected Stories Guy De Maupassant
by Guy de Maupassant
from Franklin Library
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Selected Tales and Sketches of Nathaniel Hawthorne
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$13.00
Selected Western Stories and Poems
by Bret Harte
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 9th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Short Stories of de Maupassant
by Guy de Maupassant
from International Collectors Library
for 10th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
Short Stories of Edith Wharton
by Edith Wharton
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
Short Stories of Louisa May Alcott
by Louisa May Alcott
from Dover Publications
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
Soldiers Three
by Rudyard Kipling
from Doubleday, Page & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$2.40 (1 in stock)
Stories of Edgar Allan Poe
Sterling Classics
by Edgar Allen Poe, illustrated by Scott McKowen
from Sterling Publishing Co.
for 9th-Adult
in Mystery & Suspense (Location: FIC-MYS)
Stories to Remember Volume 1
by Thomas Costain & John Beecroft
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 10th grade - Adult
in Short Stories (Location: LIT-ANTH)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Russell Hoban, afterword by Clifton Fadiman
4th printing, 1967 from Macmillan
for 8th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$11.20 (1 in stock)
Tales from Shakespeare
by Charles & Mary Lamb
from Nelson Doubleday, Inc.
for 7th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Tales of Edgar Allan Poe
Books of Wonder
by Edgar Allen Poe (illustrated by Barry Moser)
from HarperCollins
for 9th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
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