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The Best Short Stories of The Modern Age
The short-stroy form continues to be a rich and fertile vein of literary expression. Collected in this remarkable volume are twenty renowned writers of the modern age who brilliantly mastered the distinctive power and beauty of the form--each bringing his or her own unique vision to the page. This powerful collection includes the work of: Sherwood Anderson, Anton Chekov, Joseph Conrad, Shirley Jackson, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Lionel Trilling, and many more.
334 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
February 21, 2008
These are not the best short stories, but rather stories by the typical canon of authors. That said, you get great stuff from Hemingway, Kafka, all the short story writers you'd expect, and a few that I had not heard of. Angus does a good enough job of picking stories.
He seems, however, to only like one sort of short story, one without clear resolution, and without the typical story structure. Almost all of them end abruptly or without closure. If this is your thing, go for it.
He seems, however, to only like one sort of short story, one without clear resolution, and without the typical story structure. Almost all of them end abruptly or without closure. If this is your thing, go for it.
April 27, 2008
One of the three indifferently printed mass market paperbacks that most profoundly warped my literary values.
January 20, 2024
3.5 - My favorites were A Clean, Well-Lighted Place by Hemingway, Little Herr Friedemann by Thomas Mann, The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benét, A Rose for Emily by Faulkner (hands down my favorite of the collection), The Metamorphosis by Kafka (though I separately reread the entire story because this collection only had Part I), The Wall by Sartre, and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
February 6, 2024
AMAZING! Personal favorites are the tell-tale heart, the rocking horse winner, the devil and Daniel Webster and the wall. there might be more, but I can't remember. *Gasp* How could I forget a clean well-lighted place?! I am thoroughly ashamed
February 21, 2023
Dunno why there is a time period called "modern". As soon as a few years passed it was no longer modern. But here we are, stuck calling it that.
I bought this book for a college class in a previous life; as far as I remember, we only read one story out of it. Overall it's a decent collection but definitely shows the need for diversity in literature, with editor Angus favoring a certain type of story that apparently appealed to him specifically and calling it, by default, "the best". Shouldn't such a collection include at least one writer of the Harlem Renaissance?
Let's go through it story by story because I don't have anything pressing to do right now:
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe - We've all read this one before; it's a true classic. What makes it such a rich and eerie experience are all the details, such as the narrator claiming (but not elaborating on the fact that) his disease has enabled him to hear "many things in hell." What does that mean, Poe? It's not explained, just left as a tantalizing aside to build atmosphere. 5/5
"The Jewels" by Guy de Maupassant - I think I missed a detail here and had no idea how the late wife came by all that jewelry. This reminded me of the stuff you read in school that is sold to you as SO GREAT and ESSENTIAL TO THE CANON OF LITERATURE but then it just underwhelms you and you wonder if you're an idiot or if some once-important stuff just doesn't age well. It might have worked if it were longer and more developed and I got a better idea of the characters, but at less than 10 pages it just lacks the punch needed to make it memorable to me. 3/5
"Gooseberries" by Chekov - Yeah, that Star Trek guy who was also a playwright or something. He was the first one to put a gun on the wall and then fire it later on (take that, Shaun of the Dead). No guns in this story, though; too bad. I think I would have liked it better if it ended in a shootout. As it is I had to look up a synopsis just now to even remember what it was about. Something to do with the fact that happiness means shutting yourself off from the world and all its various problems. That theme resonates with me but these damn berries did not. I don't even know what a gooseberry is. 2/5
"The Tree of Knowledge" by Henry James - I remember reading James' "Daisy Miller" for a different college class than the one for which I bought this book. I remember liking it quite a bit. Not so with this story, which is just people saying cryptic things like, "Did you learn about it?" "Oh, yes, it. I learned about it." "Wait, are we talking about the same 'it'?" I remember a comedian slamming Aaron Sorkin's writing as just endless conversations about "the thing" and then all the conflict comes from people realizing too late that they misunderstood what the other person was talking about when they talked about "the thing", which I don't think is entirely fair to Sorkin but sorta kinda paints an accurate portrait of this story. 2.5/5
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway - Never read any of Hemingway's novels, only a few of his short stories, but I always enjoy his prose. I don't remember much about this except that it's about drunk people, but serious instead of funny, because I think that was part of his whole deal. 4/5
"Youth" by Joseph Conrad - Guys are on a ship and a boiler blows up or something. This was another one where the verbosity got in the way of a good story, in my dumb opinion, but then again I mostly read YA, which is bad prose in service of a story that is also bad, so I can't really be trusted to evaluate anything. 3.5/5
"The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence - Is this story supernatural or what? A boy is so unnerved by his mother's fretting about money that he wills himself to predict the future so he can figure out which horse to bet on in the races. I related to the boy's anxiety over his mother's barely-disguised constant panic and his sense of responsibility to the family even though he is the child and she ought to be taking care of him. Had no idea what this weird conceit was about the rocking horse, though; the story would have been better without it. 3/5
"Bliss" by Katherine Mansfield - Something about a tree. Didn't hate it, but not memorable. Maybe because I'm a sad person who doesn't understand what kind of euphoric feeling this main character was rambling on about. 3/5
"The Dead" by James Joyce - I've managed to avoid Joyce because he's intimidating, but surprisingly this may have been my favorite story in the collection. It's difficult to say why beyond that I found the prose compelling. 5/5
"Little Herr Friedemann" by Thomas Mann - A man is deformed because he was dropped as a baby and shields himself emotionally from the patronizing world, until he becomes infatuated with a new neighbor's wife and dares to dream of love. You can guess whether or not that goes well for him. Sort of just felt like a pointless exercise in misery; women in these kinds of stories are only allowed to be saints or devils, depending on whether or not they reciprocate the "undesirable" man's love, which is a lot to put on any individual woman in terms of determining her entire worth as a human being. 2.5/5
"Sophistication" by Sherwood Anderson - A simple story about a young boy and a young girl in a small town crossing a threshold in their relationship as a result of growing older. What a terrible summary. But it's not my fault, this isn't a plot-heavy story. I've read "The Triumph of the Egg" by Anderson and appreciate his attention to those kinds of small moments that don't add up to much in terms of spectacle but mean a lot to us personally. This one doesn't have the killer ending of the former but is still good. 4/5
"The Story of My Dovecot" by Isaac Babel - This is the prime reason to read collections like this, to be introduced to a great and important author that for some reason you'd not previously heard of. It's depressing but well-done. 4.5/5
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benet - At odds with much of the tone of this collection, but in a good way, this is a "modern" tall tale about a man selling his soul to the devil and the legendary defense attorney/most beloved man in the United States circa the mid-19th century. I saw the movie from the '40s and from what I remember the third act is pretty much the story verbatim. Apparently Daniel Webster was a real guy, how about that. 4/5
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner - This is clearly a Southern Gothic horror story that paves the way for a writer like V.C. Andrews, but we can't call it a horror story because horror is only respectable the first time anybody elevates it (see the earlier entry from Poe). I read As I Lay Dying in college and found it impenetrable; I guess part of what makes Faulkner great is that he'll never tell a story in a straightforward way that you can easily understand, but will instead try to confuse you in such a way that will not actually heighten the story's effect but will leave you feeling like you accomplished something by the end. At least it's short and has a pretty solid ending. 3.5/5
"The Metamorphosis" [Part I] by Franz Kafka - Another one we all know by cultural osmosis, even if most of use haven't read it. I have read it, back in high school, and didn't get it at all. I think it's maybe the kind of thing you can't relate to until you've gotten older and had time to be crushed by life, work, and familial obligations. I'm not sure why Angus didn't simply include the entire story, given that more real estate is given to lesser stories elsewhere in this book... 4/5 for part one, probably higher for the entire story.
"The Wall" by Jean-Paul Sartre - A man is sentenced to death in Spain for collaborating with anarchists and spends a night in a cell thinking about it. Yeah it was fine, can't say it was any kind of revelation for me. 2.5/5
"Judas" by Frank O'Connor - A young guy likes a woman (or girl? can't remember how old these characters are), but, well, you know, Mom is waiting at home and all. The main character makes repeated flippant references to wishing he had a sharp object so that he could kill himself rather than face the embarrassment inherent in pretty much every aspect of life and I related to that. 3.5/5
"Of This Time, Of That Place" by Lionel Trilling - A professor (but don't call him professor because he isn't one, but he teaches college, what?) is a poet and gets a negative review in a national magazine and one of his students is mad and one is bad and one is brilliant but boring. Kinda interesting but mainly I liked the barely-seen Hilda and her pride in photography. 3/5
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson - I read this one in high school and didn't really understand it at the time. It felt like the ending just came out of nowhere. Rereading it while knowing the "twist" makes it a more rewarding experience, but I still don't think I find it as profound as its reputation would suggest. Another one of those horror stories that doesn't get called horror because then it wouldn't be respectable, but also as a horror story the shock value is pretty negligible in 2023. I think it has something to do with the obstinacy of tradition or something, but given that the entire plot is taken up by the logistics of the lottery itself, I feel like whatever point it's making is kind of subsumed by all the details, which don't really matter except to keep you in suspense about what the actual lottery is, so once you find out it's kind of like, "Well, that could have been three pages instead of ten and saved me a lot of time." 3.5/5
"The Ledge" by Lawrence Sargent Hall - A guy takes some boys duck-hunting and yells at them a lot and then things go wrong. Weak note to end the book on because who cares about this guy. Reminded me of the dead dude in Snow Falling on Cedars who may or may not have been murdered; the difference is in that book he was only an aspect of the entire story and not the focus of it. 2/5
I bought this book for a college class in a previous life; as far as I remember, we only read one story out of it. Overall it's a decent collection but definitely shows the need for diversity in literature, with editor Angus favoring a certain type of story that apparently appealed to him specifically and calling it, by default, "the best". Shouldn't such a collection include at least one writer of the Harlem Renaissance?
Let's go through it story by story because I don't have anything pressing to do right now:
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe - We've all read this one before; it's a true classic. What makes it such a rich and eerie experience are all the details, such as the narrator claiming (but not elaborating on the fact that) his disease has enabled him to hear "many things in hell." What does that mean, Poe? It's not explained, just left as a tantalizing aside to build atmosphere. 5/5
"The Jewels" by Guy de Maupassant - I think I missed a detail here and had no idea how the late wife came by all that jewelry. This reminded me of the stuff you read in school that is sold to you as SO GREAT and ESSENTIAL TO THE CANON OF LITERATURE but then it just underwhelms you and you wonder if you're an idiot or if some once-important stuff just doesn't age well. It might have worked if it were longer and more developed and I got a better idea of the characters, but at less than 10 pages it just lacks the punch needed to make it memorable to me. 3/5
"Gooseberries" by Chekov - Yeah, that Star Trek guy who was also a playwright or something. He was the first one to put a gun on the wall and then fire it later on (take that, Shaun of the Dead). No guns in this story, though; too bad. I think I would have liked it better if it ended in a shootout. As it is I had to look up a synopsis just now to even remember what it was about. Something to do with the fact that happiness means shutting yourself off from the world and all its various problems. That theme resonates with me but these damn berries did not. I don't even know what a gooseberry is. 2/5
"The Tree of Knowledge" by Henry James - I remember reading James' "Daisy Miller" for a different college class than the one for which I bought this book. I remember liking it quite a bit. Not so with this story, which is just people saying cryptic things like, "Did you learn about it?" "Oh, yes, it. I learned about it." "Wait, are we talking about the same 'it'?" I remember a comedian slamming Aaron Sorkin's writing as just endless conversations about "the thing" and then all the conflict comes from people realizing too late that they misunderstood what the other person was talking about when they talked about "the thing", which I don't think is entirely fair to Sorkin but sorta kinda paints an accurate portrait of this story. 2.5/5
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway - Never read any of Hemingway's novels, only a few of his short stories, but I always enjoy his prose. I don't remember much about this except that it's about drunk people, but serious instead of funny, because I think that was part of his whole deal. 4/5
"Youth" by Joseph Conrad - Guys are on a ship and a boiler blows up or something. This was another one where the verbosity got in the way of a good story, in my dumb opinion, but then again I mostly read YA, which is bad prose in service of a story that is also bad, so I can't really be trusted to evaluate anything. 3.5/5
"The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence - Is this story supernatural or what? A boy is so unnerved by his mother's fretting about money that he wills himself to predict the future so he can figure out which horse to bet on in the races. I related to the boy's anxiety over his mother's barely-disguised constant panic and his sense of responsibility to the family even though he is the child and she ought to be taking care of him. Had no idea what this weird conceit was about the rocking horse, though; the story would have been better without it. 3/5
"Bliss" by Katherine Mansfield - Something about a tree. Didn't hate it, but not memorable. Maybe because I'm a sad person who doesn't understand what kind of euphoric feeling this main character was rambling on about. 3/5
"The Dead" by James Joyce - I've managed to avoid Joyce because he's intimidating, but surprisingly this may have been my favorite story in the collection. It's difficult to say why beyond that I found the prose compelling. 5/5
"Little Herr Friedemann" by Thomas Mann - A man is deformed because he was dropped as a baby and shields himself emotionally from the patronizing world, until he becomes infatuated with a new neighbor's wife and dares to dream of love. You can guess whether or not that goes well for him. Sort of just felt like a pointless exercise in misery; women in these kinds of stories are only allowed to be saints or devils, depending on whether or not they reciprocate the "undesirable" man's love, which is a lot to put on any individual woman in terms of determining her entire worth as a human being. 2.5/5
"Sophistication" by Sherwood Anderson - A simple story about a young boy and a young girl in a small town crossing a threshold in their relationship as a result of growing older. What a terrible summary. But it's not my fault, this isn't a plot-heavy story. I've read "The Triumph of the Egg" by Anderson and appreciate his attention to those kinds of small moments that don't add up to much in terms of spectacle but mean a lot to us personally. This one doesn't have the killer ending of the former but is still good. 4/5
"The Story of My Dovecot" by Isaac Babel - This is the prime reason to read collections like this, to be introduced to a great and important author that for some reason you'd not previously heard of. It's depressing but well-done. 4.5/5
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benet - At odds with much of the tone of this collection, but in a good way, this is a "modern" tall tale about a man selling his soul to the devil and the legendary defense attorney/most beloved man in the United States circa the mid-19th century. I saw the movie from the '40s and from what I remember the third act is pretty much the story verbatim. Apparently Daniel Webster was a real guy, how about that. 4/5
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner - This is clearly a Southern Gothic horror story that paves the way for a writer like V.C. Andrews, but we can't call it a horror story because horror is only respectable the first time anybody elevates it (see the earlier entry from Poe). I read As I Lay Dying in college and found it impenetrable; I guess part of what makes Faulkner great is that he'll never tell a story in a straightforward way that you can easily understand, but will instead try to confuse you in such a way that will not actually heighten the story's effect but will leave you feeling like you accomplished something by the end. At least it's short and has a pretty solid ending. 3.5/5
"The Metamorphosis" [Part I] by Franz Kafka - Another one we all know by cultural osmosis, even if most of use haven't read it. I have read it, back in high school, and didn't get it at all. I think it's maybe the kind of thing you can't relate to until you've gotten older and had time to be crushed by life, work, and familial obligations. I'm not sure why Angus didn't simply include the entire story, given that more real estate is given to lesser stories elsewhere in this book... 4/5 for part one, probably higher for the entire story.
"The Wall" by Jean-Paul Sartre - A man is sentenced to death in Spain for collaborating with anarchists and spends a night in a cell thinking about it. Yeah it was fine, can't say it was any kind of revelation for me. 2.5/5
"Judas" by Frank O'Connor - A young guy likes a woman (or girl? can't remember how old these characters are), but, well, you know, Mom is waiting at home and all. The main character makes repeated flippant references to wishing he had a sharp object so that he could kill himself rather than face the embarrassment inherent in pretty much every aspect of life and I related to that. 3.5/5
"Of This Time, Of That Place" by Lionel Trilling - A professor (but don't call him professor because he isn't one, but he teaches college, what?) is a poet and gets a negative review in a national magazine and one of his students is mad and one is bad and one is brilliant but boring. Kinda interesting but mainly I liked the barely-seen Hilda and her pride in photography. 3/5
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson - I read this one in high school and didn't really understand it at the time. It felt like the ending just came out of nowhere. Rereading it while knowing the "twist" makes it a more rewarding experience, but I still don't think I find it as profound as its reputation would suggest. Another one of those horror stories that doesn't get called horror because then it wouldn't be respectable, but also as a horror story the shock value is pretty negligible in 2023. I think it has something to do with the obstinacy of tradition or something, but given that the entire plot is taken up by the logistics of the lottery itself, I feel like whatever point it's making is kind of subsumed by all the details, which don't really matter except to keep you in suspense about what the actual lottery is, so once you find out it's kind of like, "Well, that could have been three pages instead of ten and saved me a lot of time." 3.5/5
"The Ledge" by Lawrence Sargent Hall - A guy takes some boys duck-hunting and yells at them a lot and then things go wrong. Weak note to end the book on because who cares about this guy. Reminded me of the dead dude in Snow Falling on Cedars who may or may not have been murdered; the difference is in that book he was only an aspect of the entire story and not the focus of it. 2/5
March 10, 2021
I love reading anything old with "modern" in the title, to see how well it holds up 60+ years later.
This delightful collection of short stories was a perfect example of that, I'll address each tale on it's own;
The Tell Tale Heart - I had forgotten how short this one is, at 5 pages it's still an iconic classic and would make the cut in any "best of" anthology today. 5/5
The Jewels - A sweet marital mystery, the protagonist sells his pride for prosperity. 4/5
Gooseberries - An interesting morality play about living your life for retirement. Mortgaging the present at the altar of the future. I'm a middle aged man, retirement is closing in and I can see the temptation. 3/5
Tree of Knowledge - A great character study about people who love one another and avoid speaking out to keep everyone happy, in the end building a nice life all around polite lies. 3/5
Clean, Well Lighted Place - An old man with a pleasant cafe in which to drink himself slowly to death. Just so Hemmingway. 4/5
Youth - An old man telling tales of his first disastrous voyage at sea. Starting to see a pattern that all these stories are about man's retirement, final days or reminiscence of the past. 5/5
Bliss - More contemporary story and the prose evokes such a feeling of bliss that it brought tears to my eyes. The plot is minor, the twist is a bit of a snake in paradise, but the bubbly prose about the state of self-satisfied bliss is very nice. 3/5
The Dead - Worst of the collection. A long, exhaustively detailed dinner party at which nothing happens. 2/5
Little Herr Friedman - A sympathetic protagonist runs afoul of the femme fatale, and dies of her cruelty. So much time was spent making him a sympathetic person to just tear him down out of nowhere at the end. 2/5
Sophistication - Saccharine sweet, down home Americay. Quaint? Feels like they just wanted more American entries and threw in this bit of Americana. 2.5/5
Devil & Daniel Webster - DNR, I have read it and didn't feel the need to re-read.
Rose For Emily - I think I read this in highschool. A haunting classic, love story marred by murder.
4/5
Metamorphosis - DNR - once again, I have read this before and loved it, no new review.
The Wall - Good character study of men facing death, marred by a weak ending. Cosmic futility, funny coincidence, fine. But ending on a laugh was weak and brought down the whole story. 3/5
Judas - Irish mamma's boy idealizes girl, still loves his mum. Great character but weak story. 3/5
Of this time, of that place - DNF. I was wrong earlier, THIS is by far the worst entry. Tedious, pedantic character sketch of academia, poetry and a stranger. I quit before finishing it. 1/5
The Lottery. Classic. 5/5
The Ledge - So very grim, I enjoyed it. The protagonist was un-sympathetic until he chose to face the end in such a stoic fashion. The random futility of it, the icy cold waves were evoked with real artistry. 5/5
This delightful collection of short stories was a perfect example of that, I'll address each tale on it's own;
The Tell Tale Heart - I had forgotten how short this one is, at 5 pages it's still an iconic classic and would make the cut in any "best of" anthology today. 5/5
The Jewels - A sweet marital mystery, the protagonist sells his pride for prosperity. 4/5
Gooseberries - An interesting morality play about living your life for retirement. Mortgaging the present at the altar of the future. I'm a middle aged man, retirement is closing in and I can see the temptation. 3/5
Tree of Knowledge - A great character study about people who love one another and avoid speaking out to keep everyone happy, in the end building a nice life all around polite lies. 3/5
Clean, Well Lighted Place - An old man with a pleasant cafe in which to drink himself slowly to death. Just so Hemmingway. 4/5
Youth - An old man telling tales of his first disastrous voyage at sea. Starting to see a pattern that all these stories are about man's retirement, final days or reminiscence of the past. 5/5
Bliss - More contemporary story and the prose evokes such a feeling of bliss that it brought tears to my eyes. The plot is minor, the twist is a bit of a snake in paradise, but the bubbly prose about the state of self-satisfied bliss is very nice. 3/5
The Dead - Worst of the collection. A long, exhaustively detailed dinner party at which nothing happens. 2/5
Little Herr Friedman - A sympathetic protagonist runs afoul of the femme fatale, and dies of her cruelty. So much time was spent making him a sympathetic person to just tear him down out of nowhere at the end. 2/5
Sophistication - Saccharine sweet, down home Americay. Quaint? Feels like they just wanted more American entries and threw in this bit of Americana. 2.5/5
Devil & Daniel Webster - DNR, I have read it and didn't feel the need to re-read.
Rose For Emily - I think I read this in highschool. A haunting classic, love story marred by murder.
4/5
Metamorphosis - DNR - once again, I have read this before and loved it, no new review.
The Wall - Good character study of men facing death, marred by a weak ending. Cosmic futility, funny coincidence, fine. But ending on a laugh was weak and brought down the whole story. 3/5
Judas - Irish mamma's boy idealizes girl, still loves his mum. Great character but weak story. 3/5
Of this time, of that place - DNF. I was wrong earlier, THIS is by far the worst entry. Tedious, pedantic character sketch of academia, poetry and a stranger. I quit before finishing it. 1/5
The Lottery. Classic. 5/5
The Ledge - So very grim, I enjoyed it. The protagonist was un-sympathetic until he chose to face the end in such a stoic fashion. The random futility of it, the icy cold waves were evoked with real artistry. 5/5
March 28, 2016
These are not necessarily the "best" short stories of the modern age. For me, the "best" stories of the modern age are those written by somebody named "Anonymous" and have a soft-focused boudoir photograph on the cover. Nor do these tales necessarily represent the "modern age". Originally published in 1964, the anthology contains works of some of the authors who were alive then, but are not now. For example, Jean Paul Satre and Shirley Jackson. As good as these stories are, surely the publisher could have added to the collection the short stories of more contemporary authors. This book was required reading for my son's freshman college literature class only last fall. Either the book is simply irreplaceable or the English Department of his university needs to get into the "modern age".
However it is an excellent primer for authors you may have always heard of but never read such as Kafka and Sartre. I loved "The Metamorphosis", but was disappointed that the book offered only Part One. But now that my appetite has been whetted I will get the entire story and read it. Also, I had never read Satre, and loved "The Wall". There were gems by authors whom I had read previously, such as William Faulkner ("A Rose for Emily") and by writers whom I had never hear of such as Lionel Trilling and his beautiful "Of This Time, Of That Place".
Guy de Maupassant is there, as are Joseph Conrad and Henry James. Incidentally, Shakespeare is more easily comprehended to me than Henry James. He and St. Paul seem to be in competition for Master of Verbosity.
Why must every short story anthology include "The Lottery", by Shirley Jackson? It's like Sam Adams Boston Lager: They stick it into every seasonal beer collection no matter what the season. It's a tired old story, not to mention very depressing. Speaking of depressing, the book concludes on a maudlin note with Lawrence Sargent Hall's "The Ledge". I'll never read him again.
It's rewarding to read your children's school books. It's like getting twice your money's worth for the tuition.
However it is an excellent primer for authors you may have always heard of but never read such as Kafka and Sartre. I loved "The Metamorphosis", but was disappointed that the book offered only Part One. But now that my appetite has been whetted I will get the entire story and read it. Also, I had never read Satre, and loved "The Wall". There were gems by authors whom I had read previously, such as William Faulkner ("A Rose for Emily") and by writers whom I had never hear of such as Lionel Trilling and his beautiful "Of This Time, Of That Place".
Guy de Maupassant is there, as are Joseph Conrad and Henry James. Incidentally, Shakespeare is more easily comprehended to me than Henry James. He and St. Paul seem to be in competition for Master of Verbosity.
Why must every short story anthology include "The Lottery", by Shirley Jackson? It's like Sam Adams Boston Lager: They stick it into every seasonal beer collection no matter what the season. It's a tired old story, not to mention very depressing. Speaking of depressing, the book concludes on a maudlin note with Lawrence Sargent Hall's "The Ledge". I'll never read him again.
It's rewarding to read your children's school books. It's like getting twice your money's worth for the tuition.
March 16, 2018
This superb collection of 20 stories encompasses the work of such legends as Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Shirley Jackson, Jean Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, William Faulkner, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Anton Chekhov, and more. I'd read about half of these stories in years past and was delighted to find just how much detail remained with me. My favorites included
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe - A deranged killer, sickened by an elderly man's bulging eye, murders the man in the middle of the night and buries the body under the floorboards. He considers it a perfect crime, even when the police arrive, until he hears a ringing in his ears, which turns into a ticking, then a heartbeat...
"The Jewels" by Guy de Maupassant - A young clerk becomes annoyed at his wife's penchant for collecting costume jewelry. When she passes away, he eventually takes to them to a jeweler for an appraisal...
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway - A lonely man refuses to leave the outdoor cafe he frequents—to the chagrin of one young exhausted waiter, but his coworker understands that there are those, desolate and unloved, who need a clean, well-lit place...
"The Rocking Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence - A young boy flawlessly predicts the winners of horse races by rocking on his hobby horse, but each time he must exert more effort until...
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benét - A hapless farmer strikes a deal with the devil, but when it comes time to pay up, he reaches out to legendary farmer, lawyer, and patriot Daniel Webster to save his soul.
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner - An reclusive elderly woman, once popular in the town and a source of gossip, passes away, leaving behind a grisly revelation.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson - A small town, steeped in tradition, holds an annual lottery, but the winner is far from lucky.
"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka - A young traveling salesman awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a giant cockroach.
"The Ledge" by Lawrence Sargent Hall - A fisherman and two boys venture out to a small island for Christmas morning for a day of duck hunting—until they find themselves stranded as high tide rushes in.
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe - A deranged killer, sickened by an elderly man's bulging eye, murders the man in the middle of the night and buries the body under the floorboards. He considers it a perfect crime, even when the police arrive, until he hears a ringing in his ears, which turns into a ticking, then a heartbeat...
"The Jewels" by Guy de Maupassant - A young clerk becomes annoyed at his wife's penchant for collecting costume jewelry. When she passes away, he eventually takes to them to a jeweler for an appraisal...
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemingway - A lonely man refuses to leave the outdoor cafe he frequents—to the chagrin of one young exhausted waiter, but his coworker understands that there are those, desolate and unloved, who need a clean, well-lit place...
"The Rocking Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence - A young boy flawlessly predicts the winners of horse races by rocking on his hobby horse, but each time he must exert more effort until...
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benét - A hapless farmer strikes a deal with the devil, but when it comes time to pay up, he reaches out to legendary farmer, lawyer, and patriot Daniel Webster to save his soul.
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner - An reclusive elderly woman, once popular in the town and a source of gossip, passes away, leaving behind a grisly revelation.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson - A small town, steeped in tradition, holds an annual lottery, but the winner is far from lucky.
"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka - A young traveling salesman awakens one morning to find himself transformed into a giant cockroach.
"The Ledge" by Lawrence Sargent Hall - A fisherman and two boys venture out to a small island for Christmas morning for a day of duck hunting—until they find themselves stranded as high tide rushes in.
January 12, 2026
Several short stories stood out to me:
Bliss by Katherine Mansfield, The Dead James Joyce, Little Herr Friedmann Thomas Mann; The Story of My Dovecot Isaac Babel; The Devil and Daniel Webster Stephen Vincent Benet - I enjoyed very much as it speaks to our times when few Men are honorable; The Wall Jean-Paul Sartre was a disturbing story on the power of death and the desire to live; and the last two Of This Time, Of That Place Lionel Trilling a wonderful story about college life especially a professor; and finally, The Ledge a disturbing story of pride and manhood that brings about the downfall of a man and the children who are with him. However, the story ends with a positive feeling that even a hard stubborn man can change.
Bliss by Katherine Mansfield, The Dead James Joyce, Little Herr Friedmann Thomas Mann; The Story of My Dovecot Isaac Babel; The Devil and Daniel Webster Stephen Vincent Benet - I enjoyed very much as it speaks to our times when few Men are honorable; The Wall Jean-Paul Sartre was a disturbing story on the power of death and the desire to live; and the last two Of This Time, Of That Place Lionel Trilling a wonderful story about college life especially a professor; and finally, The Ledge a disturbing story of pride and manhood that brings about the downfall of a man and the children who are with him. However, the story ends with a positive feeling that even a hard stubborn man can change.
February 19, 2021
An excellent anthology of modern short stories. Though one could quibble with a few of the selections, the book provided me with an opportunity to reread several classic stories - Conrad's Youth, Kafka's Metamorphosis, Joyce's The Dead, and James's The Tree of Knowledge - I'd been meaning to get back to for some time. There aren't many surprises, just an enjoyable selection of favorites.
February 6, 2024
I like only one part of the book(by the way i didn't read it all the way) which is The Devil and Daniel Webster. IT. WAS. AWESOME! Especially the part where Daniel(or Dan'l as they spelled it back then) Kicked the Devil in the booty butt!
December 29, 2009
This anthology has all classic authors: Sherwood Anderson, Anton Chekov, Joseph Conrad, Shirley Jackson, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Lionel Trilling, and quite a few more. My favorite piece is The Rocking Horse Winner because of the use of metaphor and symbol, which I can actually understand easily now, as an adult, instead of not seeing it at all when I read it in high school. This is about a truly dysfunctional family who wants to keep up with the Jones at all costs. The father uses his son to help him select a horse to bet on and over time, the poor boy starts to feel responsible for helping his father increase his luck. I read it this time feeling very sorry for the child who rides his rocking horse into a frenzy, channeling the winning horse. I interpreted this as a metaphor for what children will do to please their parents, sometimes dying over it as the little boy in this story does.
March 28, 2014
I realize this is an old edition, but I'm surprised at the poor quality of some of the selections. Many were uninteresting, some insulting, like "A Rose for Emily". And some were great: :The Lottery" of course, "The Jewels", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Devil and Mr. Webster", "Metamorphosis" , and a new one for me, "The Ledge". My recommendation would be to get a newer edition or a different anthology.
January 27, 2015
I read this collection of short stories in school. I loved them. A few favorites are "A Tell Tale Heart," "A Rose for Emily," "The Lottery," "The Jewels," and "The Rocking-Horse Winner." I remember a few classmates and I had to make a video recreating one of the stories and we had a blast filming and watching other students' creations. I highly recommend reading some of the selections in this book, whether in this format or another. They are dark, intriguing, and extremely thought-provoking.
July 10, 2008
This book is a collection of short stories.
Read
October 31, 2008Best Short Stories of the Modern Age by Douglas Angus (1987)
May 29, 2011
These are the best. This is the first place I came across my beloved Stephen Vincent Benet, and one of my favorite fiction pieces ever, 'The Devil and Daniel Webster.'
May 5, 2010
Shortreads. Particularly good: The Dead, Little Herr Friedemann, A Rose for Emily, Judas, Of This Time, Of That Place, and The Lottery.
started-didn-t-finish
October 29, 2010love short stories and this selection includes all those writers I "Cliff noted" through school...Chekhov, Conrad, Faulkner, Hemingway,Henry James, D.H. Lawrence, Kafka, de Maupassant, Sartre.
July 15, 2012
The title sort of gets you there. I don't know about "best" but I did enjoy reading these stories.
December 29, 2012
Compilation of some serious classics that cannot be overlooked. Must read!
January 6, 2013
Awesome collection of short stories! Among my faves are: The Lottery, A Rose for Emily, The Tell-Tale Heart, & The Metamorphosis.
June 10, 2013
What an awesome collection of work! Fantastic selection. A+++
September 1, 2016
My favourites:
- The Dead (Joyce)
- The Ledge (Hall)
- The Lottery (Jackson)
- Of This Place, Of That Time (Trilling)
- A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (Hemingway)
- The Wall (Sartre)
- The Dead (Joyce)
- The Ledge (Hall)
- The Lottery (Jackson)
- Of This Place, Of That Time (Trilling)
- A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (Hemingway)
- The Wall (Sartre)
January 2, 2022
Some stories were very good and captivating, and others, which were by very famous classic authors, were very disappointing.
September 16, 2019
A nice collection which i really enjoyed. I got the chance to discover some authors i've always wanted to read their works.
April 2, 2017
I enjoyed these old-time authors. The title says of the modern age, but it means around the 1960s. I especially liked The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benet, The Tree of Knowledge by Henry James, The Dead by James Joyce, Judas by Frank O'Connor, and Of This Time, Of That Place by Lionel Trilling. Excellent writing in all the stories.
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