Seeing Ourselves: Great Stories from America's Past 1819-1918

by Alan Cheuse

This collection of twenty American short stories, organized chronologically from the 19th century through World War I, helps tell the story of how we came to be who and what we are. Selected by NPR writer and reviewer Alan Cheuse, this is a new variety of anthology, one that starts as a compilation of wonderful literature but, by means of Cheuse's selection and commentary, becomes a social history of our nation. It includes Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," and Theodore Dreiser's "Free."

480 pages, Paperback

First published July 4, 2007

About the author

American writer and critic.
For more than two decades, Alan Cheuse has served as NPRs voice of books. He is the author of three novels, including The Grandmothers Club and The Light Possessed, several collections of short stories, and a pair of novellas recently published in The Fires. He is also the editor of Seeing Ourselves: Great Early American Short Stories and co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book. Stories and co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book."
Forthcoming in March, 2015, the novel
Prayers for the Living...
Born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Cheuse grew up in a Jewish family, the son of a Russian immigrant father and a mother of Russian and Romanian descent