Classic American Short Stories

by Michael Kelahan (Compiler)

Barnes and Nobles Description :
Classic American Short Stories celebrates the perfection of the short story as a popular storytelling form in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America. This volume features the work of twenty-seven authors regarded as some of the most distinguished names in American belles lettres, among them Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton, Henry James, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and H.P. Lovecraft. The fifty classic tales it collects include:
The Fall of the House of Usher--Edgar Allan Poe
Bartleby the Scrivener--Herman Melville
The Yellow Wall-Paper--Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Gift of the Magi--O. Henry
A White Heron--Sarah Orne Jewett
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow--Washington Irving
Paul's Case--Willa Cather
Bernice Bobs Her Hair--F. Scott Fitzgerald
and many more

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Collections, Short Story Collection, Literature

800 pages, Leather Bound

First published April 30, 2013

Reviews

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

An anthology of 17 short stories by a variety of American authors celebrating the perfection of the short story as a popular storytelling form from the nineteenth century.

[Anna Hackbarth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the stories were just incredible like The Lady, or the Tiger? and The Yellow Wallpaper. Others were rather boring.

[Skjam! · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more or less exactly what it says in the title, a compilation of short(ish) stories written by American authors, most of which are acknowledged as classics by American Lit professors. The stories are arranged by author in roughly chronological order from the early Nineteenth Century to the 1920s to stay safely in the public domain.

The fifty-one stories included begin with Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”, a tall tale about a henpecked husband who drinks ghostly beer and sleeps for twenty years, right through the American Revolution. The book ends with “Winter Dreams” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A young man from Minnesota finds great success in the laundry business, but heartache when the woman he loves cannot settle for just him. In between are ones that are very familiar to me, like “The Telltale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe (a murderer confesses his crime in an effort to prove his sanity) and stories that were new to me, like “The Revolt of ‘Mother'” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (a New England woman, tired of an unkept promise, takes matters into her own hands.)

There’s a wide variety of genres represented, from “realistic” slice of life stories through mystery and fantasy to outright horror. The chronological order highlights the changing social attitudes depicted in the stories, particularly the two Edith Wharton stories about divorce. Women are reasonably well-represented, and there are a couple of writers of color as well.

Of course, just because a story is “classic” does not mean it will appeal to everyone. I found Henry James’ novella “The Aspern Papers” (literary buff infiltrates the household of a famous poet’s ex-lover in an effort to gain any memorabilia she might have of him) tedious and predictable. I am not alone in this, but many other readers have found it fascinating.

Content issues: Many of these stories have elements of period racism, sexism and classism; sometimes it’s dealt with within the story itself, but other times it pops up as a nasty surprise. “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather, about a boy who wants the finer things in life without the tedium of putting in decades of hard labor to get them, deals with suicide.

This is a Barnes & Noble collector’s edition, and is quite handsome and sturdy, with a leather binding, gilt-edged pages and a silk bookmark for a reasonable price. However, the fact that it has a “compiler” rather than an editor is telling. There are scattered typos; I do not know if they were caused by errors in transcription, or if the sources were not scrutinized carefully enough. The author bios at the end are not quite in alphabetical order, and miss out Washington Irving altogether.

Overall, most of these stories are worth reading at least once, and many are worth rereading over the years. Highly recommended to people who don’t already have their favorites from this collection in a physical book, or are curious about the stories they haven’t read yet. It’d also make a nice gift for your bookworm friend or relative.

[Michael Loveless · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy short stories, but I didn't enjoy this collection as much as I had hoped. The book is filled with stories by some of the best writers in American history, so my evaluation should be considered suspect. Part of the problem was the way I read it. I often picked up the book at the end of the day, when my other work was done, and I was ready for bed. Therefore, it was hard to read a story in it's entirety. Some of the longer stories took me days to read. If a story was particularly long or wasn't interesting to me, it took a long time to finish. Because it's a collection, any reader will likely find some stories enjoyable and others less so. I particularly liked stories by Washington Irving, O. Henry, H.P. Lovecraft, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. My favorite story was The Yellow Wallpaper. Maybe my biggest complaint was that the book contains no stories after the 1920s. Perhaps more recent stories would be easier for me to relate to.

[Dean Kephart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took quite some time to read this book as I read a story or two each week. They are all classic. I had read a few before and had even taught a couple when I was an English teacher. I recommend the same sort of experience. Read a couple each week and enjoy the richness of these short story authors. It is a timeless collection.

[P.S. Winn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book to read and get a sample of the writing by various authors. Writing a short story is a great talent and different than writing a novel, grab this book to get a peek at the authors who do it best!

[Jenny T · Rating 4 out of 5]

On a Barnes and Noble excursion with my husband, I came across this attractive hardbound anthology of stories that I'd never read, but was curious to sink my brain into. I figured I'd better get caught up on the classics of American literature since I am a writer, after all. I had heard of O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi," of course, but other big time authors such as Washington Irving and Edgar Alan Poe were only names without associations.

This collection featured great literary devices - alliteration, strong imagery, simile, etc. All major genres were included. These works are all published pre-1923, however, and can be found for free in the public domain, online, at Gutenberg.org. I did use a couple passages to inform my assessment writing work!

My favorite authors in the collection were O. Henry, Henry James, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Kate Chopin. I liked their fresh language and interesting slices of life. I didn't care much for stories from Poe, Ring Lardner, Stephen Crane, or Willa Cather. Maybe I'll find some gems by those latter mentioned authors as I read more classic short stories in other anthologies.

[Abe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me a couple years, but I made it through all of them. Out of the ones that were new to me, some of my favorites were: Young Goodman Brown, The Man Without a Country, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, The Aspern Papers, The Beast In the Jungle (I would describe this one as type 2 fun), The Revolt of Mother, The Blue Hotel, The Sculptor's Funeral, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz