The World Treasury of Love Stories

by Lucy Rosenthal (Compiler), Clifton Fadiman (Foreword)

Exhilarating, poignant, passionate, lyrical, amusing or inspiring, the selections in The World Treasury of Love Stories are as rich and varied as love itself. While the lion's share of the stories explore romantic love and its many stages and masks, this remarkable anthology is neither
conventional nor predictable. Rather than trying to represent the entire tradition of the love story, editor Lucy Rosenthal has searched the world's literature to select thirty-eight stunningly beautiful and wholly original entries, choosing only those that speak most memorably, and most directly,
to our own time.

While each story stands on its own, together this finely crafted collection is a looking glass into the many moods of love, from the sweep and ferocity of Verga's The Wolf ; to the lyric realism of Chekhov's Lady with the Pet Dog ; to the disillusioned ache and unexpected tenderness of Raymond
Carver's Fever . From James Joyce's Ulysses , here are Molly Bloom's life-affirming, stream-of-consciousness recollections of key erotic episodes; at the other end of the spectrum is John Updike's "Separating," a devastatingly precise portrait of the dismantling of a marriage. Though both stories
grapple with the theme of lost or unattainable love, Yasunari Kawabata's delicately traced Moon on the Water could not be further removed from Gail Godwin's earthy and ironic "My Lover, His Summer Vaction." Within this rich diversity, however, strong parallels emerge. Yukio Mishima's "Patriotism,"
for example, is set in the imperial Japan of 1936, and steeped in the elite traditions of the samurai , while Isaac Bashevis Singer's "Short Friday" depicts a poor Eastern European tailor and his wife as they go about their ritual preparations for the Sabbath; both stories offer powerful and
unforgettable treatments of marital fidelity. Stories by Colette, Italo Calvino, Gustave Flaubert, Nadine Gordimer, Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, Alice Walker, Edith Wharton, and many others complement and echo each other's themes as they explore the nuances of love and loss, betrayal and devotion,
as if the love stories themselves were love letters, forging links among writers across separate worlds and centuries.

Ranging from The Book of Ruth to the contemporary observations of today's finest fiction writers, The World Treasury of Love Stories is destined to become a classic. Enhanced with a thoughtful introduction by Lucy Rosenthal, with illuminating notes on the life and work of each contributor, it will
captivate anyone who has every wondered, "What is this thing called love?"

Hardcover

First published February 14, 1995

Reviews

[Paul Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an impressive collection of stories all generally linked around the theme of love, parental, sibling, romantic, or otherwise. The collection of authors reads like a who's who of some of the greatest writers of all time, plus a few from left field that very few would know. Most people would pick up this collection simply for the names Balzac, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Anton Chekhov, Colette, Dante, Isak Dinesen, Flaubert, Nadine Gordimer, Hawthorne, James, Kundera, Lawrence, Lessing, Nabokov, O'Hara, Porter, Pritchett, Singer, Updike, Walker, Welty, Wharton, or Joyce. These are but a few standouts in this work of 578 pages.

Although you may not care for some of the stories, it is easy to skip through and concentrate on the ones that really sing.

Highly recommended for Young Adult through Adult readers.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thirty-eight tales of love in a variety of forms, and not one – I was relieved to find – of the formulaic Harlequin variety.

My favorites were: “A Passion in the Desert” by Honoré de Balzac; “The Country Husband” by John Cheever; “Eyes of Zapata” by Sandra Cisneros; “The Immortal Story” by Isak Denisen; “The Walk” by José Donoso; “A Simple Heart” by Gustave Flaubert; “My Lover, His Summer Vacation” by Gail Godwin; “Adina” by Henry James; “The Marquise of O-----” by Henrich von Kleist; “Territory” by David Leavitt; “Patriotism” by Yukio Mishima; “Imagine Kissing Pete” by John O’Hara; “Rope” by Katherine Anne Porter; “Blind Love” by V. S. Pritchett; “The Wide Net” by Eudora Welty; and “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton. 

[Doobie Doo_JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

This would be a must read in my collection.

It is great to read of all the forms of love. Something for everyone.
Keeping the recommendation simple because it has been a while and don`t want to spoil anything anyway.

This is a bible for anyone who dares to use the word love.