Fiction: A Pocket Anthology

by R.S. Gwynn (Editor)

Introduction
Writing about short fiction
Fiction : Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Tell-tale Heart / Edgar Allan Poe
A White Heron / Sarah Orne Jewett
Mothe Savage / Guy de Maupassant
Desiree's Baby / Kate Chopin
The Lady with the Pet Dog / Anton Chekhov
The Yellow Wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Roman Fever / Edith Wharton
Paul's Case / Willa Cather
Eveline / James Joyce
Sweat / Zora Neale Hurston
Barn Burning / William Faulkner
The Secret Miracle / Jorge Luis Borges
Hills like White Elephants / Ernest Hemingway
The Chrysanthemums / John Steinbeck --The Man Who Was Almost a Man / Richard Wright
A Worn Path / Eudora Welty
Reunion / John Cheever
A Party Down at the Square / Ralph Ellison
Wants / Grace Paley
Good Country People / Flannery O'Connor
Doctor Jack-o' -Lantern / Richard Yates
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings / Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas / Urrsula K. LeGuin
Dead Men's Path / Chinua Achebe
Time of Passage / J.G. Ballard
The Genius / Donald Barthelme
How I Met My Husband / Alice Munro
The Fat Girl / Andre Dubus
Cathedral / Raymond Carver
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? / Joyce Carol Oates
Happy Endings / Margaret Atwood
Shiloh / Bobbia Ann Mason
Everyday Use / Alice Walker
Died and Gone to Vegas / Tim Gautreaux
Girl / Jamaica Kincaid
Look on the Bright Side / Dagoberto Gilb
Woma Hollering Creek / Sandra Cisneros
The Red Convertible / Louise Erdrich
In the American Society / Gish Jen
How to Talk to Your Mother (Notes) / Lorrie Moore
Orientation / Daniel Orozco

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Classics

457 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

R.S. Gwynn, known as a "new formalist" poet, received a BA from Davidson College, where he twice won the Vereen Bell Award for Creative Writing, and he earned both an MA and an MFA from the University of Arkansas, where he won the John Gould Fletcher Award for Poetry. Gwynn has also won the Michael Braude Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He is the author of several collections of poetry, including No Word of Farewell: Selected Poems 1970–2000; The Narcissiad (1982), a book-length satirical poem; and The Drive-In (1986), winner of the Breakthrough Award from the University of Missouri Press. Gwynn has taught at Lamar University since 1976. He lives in Beaumont, Texas.

Reviews

[Dianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories themselves are great but the typos throughout the book were embarrassing -- and I was using this book with students :(

[Marck Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for a class on reading and writing fiction, this is your basic collection of short stories, most well-known, spanning a period from the late 19th through the late 20th centuries. Particular favorites in this collection include the stories by William Faulkner, Andre Dubus, Joyce Carol Oates, and Flannery O'Connor.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, I am amazed at the talent of writers like Alice Munro, Flannery O'Conner, Eudora Welty and the whole gang. It's all here. What a wonderful book for a short sit down to take your mind off the world. A great collection of short stories.

[Joe Mossa · Rating 3 out of 5]

famous short stories,some good,some bad,some funny,some sad,some average.

[eliza]

Again, this is the anthology I'm teaching from for next semester's Art of Fiction class at UMass-Boston.

[Amy Kitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of these stories I have read before. It was nice to go back and read them again. I'm teaching from this book for a Comp II class this fall.

[Molly]

A selection of some very good short stories. I really enjoyed this.