The Story: A Critical Anthology

by Mark Schorer

The A Critical Anthology [Hardcover] [Jan 01, 1950] Mark Schorer

480 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1967

About the author

Mark Schorer was an American writer, critic, and scholar born in Sauk City, Wisconsin.

Schorer earned an MA at Harvard and his Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1936. During his academic career, he held positions at Dartmouth, Harvard, and the University of California, Berkeley, where he chaired the Department of English from 1960 to 1965. A leading critic of his time, he was best known for his work, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life. Schorer was also the author of many short stories, which appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, Harpers, The Atlantic Monthly, and Esquire.

Among his honors were three Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright professorship at the University of Pisa and a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. He also was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the most prestigious honor society for creative arts in the country.

Schorer was called as an expert witness during the 1957 obscenity trial over the Allen Ginsberg poem Howl, and testified in defense of the poem. This incident is dramatized in the film Howl (2010), in which Schorer is portrayed by Treat Williams.

In addition to his scholarly works, he also co-authored a series of science-fiction and horror stories with writer, publisher and childhood friend (both being natives of Sauk City, Wisconsin) August Derleth. These stories, originally published mainly in Weird Tales magazine during the 1920s and 1930s, were eventually anthologized in Colonel Markesan and Less Pleasant People (1966).

Schorer died from a blood infection following bladder surgery in Oakland, California at the age of 69.

Reviews

[Will Cadle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up from a professor I knew when I was in college. I think he'd used it at some time for a class but no longer needed it. I feel fortunate to have it. There are some excellent stories that are polished to a vivid brightness by writers who knew their craft. I miss that...that quality of craftsmanship.
This is where I first read Conrad Aiken's Silent Snow, Secret Snow which further encouraged me to read a book of his poetry which I'd had sitting on the bookshelf for many years without really giving it much thought. He's an excellent poet, too, in my opinion.
Some other gems in the book are Harold Brodkey's Sentimental Education; Graham Greene's The Basement Room (which I'd already read but re-reading it again many years later reminded me what an excellent wordsmith Greene was); F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Freshest Boy (people seem to want to dismiss Fitzgerald as of late, but when you read his short stories you realize just how good he is); Thomas Mann's Railway Accident; Yukio Mishima's Swaddling Clothes; and Paul Brodeur's Hydrography. These are just a few, but they give a glimpse of the broad scope of writing Schorer presents.

[Norman Birnbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up because I had read an essay by Joan Didion that mentioned Mark Schorer as a notable writing professor of hers in college. The book contains some interesting stories some by authors I read for the first time. The introductions and questions after the stories were helpful in thinking about the author’s intentions. I think some of the stories selected for the hardcover edition were old fashioned and while they hold up, I thought they wouldn’t have been included in a more modern edition. Based on why I saw about a paperback edition, Schorer apparently replaced a number of the stories from the original edition. I liked the edition I read but would be interested to see how Schorer’s thinking evolved based on the newer stories. Next, I’ll read George Saunders’s look at Russian literature.