The Signet Classic Book of American Short Stories

This superb collection celebrates the astonishing growth of the short story in America, from the early nineteenth century to the outbreak of World War II. From the very beginnings of this youngest of literary forms, American writers have played a crucial role in its development.

Here are thirty-three of their finest stories, ranging from the brooding romanticism of Hawthorne and Poe to the wit of Twain and Thurber — from the high moral consciousness of James to the sheer high spirits of Saroyan. Taken together, these classic tales form a remarkably rich and vital record of one of our literature's proudest and most original achievements.

• Author
• Burton Raffel, Various, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bret Harte, Bayard Taylor, Rose Terry Cooke, Ambrose Bierce, Hamlin Garland, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Henry James, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Grace Elizabeth King, Harold Frederick, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Jack London, Francis Hopkinson Smith, Zona Gale, O. Henry, Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Stephen Vincent Benét, Willa Cather, William Faulkner, James Thurber, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Saroyan

• Pages
• 557

• Publisher
• Signet Classic (an imprint of Dutton Signet)

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9780451522795

• Genres
• classics, anthologies, fiction

• Release date
• 1985