Tellers of Tales: 100 Short Stories from the United States, England, France, Russia and Germany

by W. Somerset Maugham

100 short stories from the United states, England, France, Russia and Germany.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

1526 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

William Somerset Maugham was born in Paris in 1874. He spoke French even before he spoke a word of English, a fact to which some critics attribute the purity of his style.

His parents died early and, after an unhappy boyhood, which he recorded poignantly in Of Human Bondage, Maugham became a qualified physician. But writing was his true vocation. For ten years before his first success, he almost literally starved while pouring out novels and plays.

Maugham wrote at a time when experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. In this context, his plain prose style was criticized as 'such a tissue of clichés' that one's wonder is finally aroused at the writer's ability to assemble so many and at his unfailing inability to put anything in an individual way.

During World War I, Maugham worked for the British Secret Service . He travelled all over the world, and made many visits to America. After World War II, Maugham made his home in south of France and continued to move between England and Nice till his death in 1965.

At the time of Maugham's birth, French law was such that all foreign boys born in France became liable for conscription. Thus, Maugham was born within the Embassy, legally recognized as UK territory.

Reviews

[Lisa of Troy]

Annotated Book in F. Scott Fitzgerald's College of One

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book 20 years ago. Somerset Maugham is one of my favourite writers. And I thought a collection of short stories chosen by him must be excellent.

But for many years I did not start to read it, because I was afraid I would never finish it. It is more than 1500 densely printed pages. (Some of the stories, like Typhoon by Conrad are really short novels.) But finally after becoming a Goodreader I decided to go for it. It took me nearly three years on and off reading it.

People do not like reading short stories. And I am no exception. It takes a disproportional amount of energy to read a short story instead of a novel. In a novel you do not have to get everything from the beginning, and in between you can let your mind allow to wander. You will – at least in most cases – catch up. With a short story this is a luxury you are not allowed. The risk is too high, you miss the entire point. Reading a collection of stories from one writer is much easier. Once you know the style you have a pretty good idea what to expect.

So reading a collection of different writer is the hardest thing. (For some reason there are four writers represented with two stories: Maupassant, Kipling, Sherwood Anderson and Ring Lardner.)

The collection was published in the 40s of last century. And it shows. Only a couple of female writers and only stories from the main literary countries. We only get English, German, French and Russian stories. A brave decision even at the time. Actually, the introduction where Maugham explains his decisions and his views on literature is the best thing in the book.

The first confession I have to make is, that I liked the German stories best. The Russian least. And in general the more recent (but not too recent, that is until the 20s) better that the really old. As good as Rip van Winkle is as a story. It reads as if it were written five hundred years ago, not 200 years ago.

None of the 100 stories is bad but how many of these are actually really good? Well, maybe 20 or so. How many do I still vividly remember and will probably read again? Maybe seven or eight.

By far the best one is called Youth, by a writer unknown to me at the time, Karl Emil Franzos (since then I have read a novel by him which was also excellent.) It about a friendship of two men. One them making a fatal decision in his youth.

There are a couple of well known stories like The Killers by Hemingway or Gold Bug by Poe but most were unknown to me. Next to Franzos the ones I liked best were:

To Build a Fire - Jack London
The Death of Ivan Ilych - Leo Tolstoy
Captain Ribnikov – Alexander Kuprin
The Amulet – Jakob Wassermann
Early Sorrow – Thomas Mann
The Invisible Collection – Stefan Zweig
Big Blonde – Dorothy Parker

[Jessica]

Found in the bowels of the SMPL bookstore. Wonderful find!

[David Strenfel]

Great collection.

[Isabel Hogue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up this book on the give-away table at my public library. A fascinating collection, published in 1939, that spans almost two centuries.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

The two drovers / Sir Walter Scott --3
Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving --3
The stout gentleman / Washington Irving --3
La Grande Breteche / Honore de Balzac --3
The gray champion / Nathaniel Hawthorne --2
The crimson curtain / Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly --2
The gold-bug / Edgar Allan Poe --4
A simple heart / Gustave Flaubert --3
Krambambuli / Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach --
The outcasts of Poker Flat / Francis Bret Harte --4
Olympe and Henriette / Villiers de l'Isle Adam --
The three strangers / Thomas Hardy --3
The jolly corner / Henry James --2
The procurator of Judaea / Anatole France --3
Youth / Karl Emil Franzos --
Markheim / Robert Louis Stevenson --1
The necklace / Guy de Maupassant --4
The legacy / Guy de Maupassant --
Useless Mouths / Octave Mirbeau --
The happy prince / Oscar Wilde --5
The adventure of the Bruce-Partington plans / A. Conan Doyle --3
*Typhoon / Joseph Conrad --
*The fate of the baron / Arthur Schnitzler --
The whirligig of life / O. Henry --3
*Without visible means / Arthur Morrison --
The stricken doe / Pierre Mille --
The monkey's paw / W.W. Jacobs --3
The coach / Violet Hunt --2
The last visit / Tristan Bernard --
The man who would be king / Rudyard Kipling --2
*Without benefit of clergy / Rudyard Kipling --
Papago wedding / Mary Austin --3
Uncle Franz / Ludwig Thoma --
The door in the wall / H.G. Wells --2
*An experiment in misery / Stephen Crane --
Tobermory / Saki --4
To build a fire / Jack London --3
The death of Ivan Ilych / Leo Tolstoy --2
*The toupee artist / Nicolai Lyeskov --
*Mouzhiks / Anton Chekhov --
Twenty-six and one / Maxim Gorky --3
Sunstroke / Ivan Bunin --2
Captain Ribnikov / Alexander Kuprin --
Hydromel / Vassili Iretsky --
Without Cherry Blossom / Pantaleimon Romanof --
In the town of Berdichev / Vassily Grossman --
Hunger / Alexander Neweroff --
Romance / Vera Inber --
Earth on the hands / Boris Pilnjak --
A letter / Isaac Babel --2
The child / Vsevolod Ivanov --
The customer / Georgy Peskov --
The knives / Valentine Katayev --
Pippo Spano / Heinrich Mann --
Old Rogaum and his Theresa / Theodore Dreiser --2
A.V. Laider / Max Beerbohm --2
The amulet / Jacob Wassermann --
Cavalry Patrol / Hugo von Hofmannsthal --
Seeds / Sherwood Anderson --2
The other woman / Sherwood Anderson --3
Early sorrow / Thomas Mann --
Mr. and Mrs. Abbey's difficulties / E.M. Forster --3
The invisible collection / Stefan Zweig --3
*Uncle Fred flits by / P.G. Wodehouse --
In the last coach / Leonhard Frank --
*Counterparts / James Joyce --
The tragedy of Goupil / Louis Pergaud --
Odour of chrysanthemums / D.H. Lawrence --3
The chink / Alexandre Arnoux --
Haircut / Ring Lardner --3
Champion / Ring Lardner --3
A Balaam / Arnold Zweig --
Old Man Minick / Edna Ferber --3
The golden beetle / Bruno Frank --
The Catalan night / Paul Morand --
Silent snow, secret snow / Conrad Aiken --1
The lovely day / Jacques de Lacretelle --
On the farm / Hans Friedrich Blunck --
The killers / Ernest Hemingway --3
The stranger / Katherine Mansfield --3
The house of mourning / Franz Werfel --
*A start in life / Ruth Suckow --
The desert islander / Stella Benson --2
Big blonde / Dorothy Parker --2
Orphant Annie / Thyra Samter Winslow --
Nuns at luncheon / Aldous Huxley --2
The rich boy / F. Scott Fitzgerald --3
*The imposition / L.A.G. Strong --
Turn about / William Faulkner --
The doll / J. Kessel --
*Reduced / Elizabeth Bowen --
Maria Concepcion / Katherine Anne Porter --3
The cherry feast / Ernst Glaeser --
No more trouble for Jedwick / Louis Paul --
If you can't be good, be cautious / T.O. Beachcroft --
The ball / Irene Nemirovsky --
Kneel to the rising sun / Erskine Caldwell --3
The Nowaks / Christopher Isherwood --
*Convalescence / Kay Boyle --
The station / H.E. Bates --3
Oklahoma race riot / Frances W. Prentice--

[Lorrie Lush · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible find. I saw it in a bin placed outside a used bookstore. It was put out for the garbage. There are some great short stories by many well-known authors in this book. If you can find a copy, grab it. You won't be able to put it down.