The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories: from Washington Irving to Lydia Davis

by Kasia Boddy

The last 50 years have proved a particularly lively period in the history of the short story form. This new collection gives a full picture of the richness and diversity of this most American of genres from its very beginnings to the present day. The collection offers a freshly stimulating combination of old favourites such as Mark Twain's 'Jim Smiley's Jumping Frog' and Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart', unfamiliar works by well-known authors, such as Ernest Hemingway's 'Out of Season', Stephen Crane's 'An Episode of War' and F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Lost Decade' , and some remarkable stories by wonderful but less well known writers such as Mary Wilkins Freeman and Charles W. Chestnutt who deserve a wider audience. It's a compact book but it covers a lot of ground. There are 31 stories, covering 199 years (that is, the first story was published in 1807; the last is from 2006). The final three authors are Lorrie Moore, Jhumpa Lahiri and Lydia Davis.Table of contentsWashington Irving - The Little Man in Black (1807)Nathaniel Hawthorne - Young Goodman Brown (1835)Edgar Allan Poe - The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)Fanny Fern - Aunt Hetty on Matrimony (1851)Mark Twain - Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog (1865)Joel Chandler Harris - The Tar Baby Story (1880)Mary Wilkins Freeman - Two Friends (1887)Charles W. Chesnutt - The Wife of his Youth (1898)Henry James - The Real Right Thing (1899)Stephen Crane - An Episode of War (1899)O. Henry - Hearts and Hands (1903)Sherwood Anderson - The Untold Lie (1917)Ernest HemingwayOut of Season (1923)Edith Wharton - Atrophy (1927)Dorothy Parker - New York to Detroit (1928)Eudora Welty - The Whistle (1938)William Faulkner - Barn Burning (1939)F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Lost Decade (1939)Zora Neale Hurston - Now You Cookin' with Gas (1942)Bernard Malamud - The First Seven Years (1950)Flannery O'Connor - A Late Encounter with the Enemy (1953)John Updike - Sunday Teasing (1956)John Cheever - Reunion (1962)Grace Paley - Wants (1971)Alice Walker - The Flowers (1973)Donald Barthelme - I Bought a Little City (1974)Raymond Carver - Collectors (1975)Richard Ford - Communist (1985)Lorrie Moore - Starving Again (1990)Jhumpa Lahiri - The Third and Final Continent (1999)Lydia Davis - The Caterpillar (2006)

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, American, Anthologies, Fiction, American Classics, Contemporary

Paperback

First published October 1, 2011

About the author

Kasia Boddy teaches in the English Department at University College London. She has written extensively on twentieth-century American literature.

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, I know anthologies are often a mixed bag but this selection seems especially bland with some very short stories of only a page or two included. They also tend to plain language and straightforward description - is this a quality of the American short story? I expected more range and surprises than I got here so maybe I have very different taste from the editor - or maybe I just don't vibe with American stories?

In terms of choices, there are some famous stories here: 'Barn Burning' by Faulkner, 'The Tell-tale Heart' by Poe, 'Young Goodman Brown' by Hawthorne, all of which I'd read before. The Henry James and Edith Wharton choices are odd: 'The Real Right Thing' and 'Atrophy', not the best or most interesting from either author. 'Now You Cookin' With Gas' by Zora Neale Hurston is one of the few tales that makes use of voice, something I'd have expected more of from such a diverse country, and too many of the tales felt flat and inconsequential.

My favourites are 'The Wife of His Youth' by the relatively unknown Charles W. Chestnutt, one of the few stories that engages explicitly with America's race issues and slavery - though even this one has a moralistic overtone that I find off-putting. The stand-out for me is 'The Third and Final Continent' by Jhumpa Lahiri, finally a story that deals with America in a global sense and which is imbued with real emotion.

There are famous names here so this is surprisingly unexciting - even stories from authors I enjoy (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Welty, as well as the fore-mentioned Wharton and James) tend to feeling a bit humdrum - so maybe it's the editorial choices that worked against me. In any case, a disappointing read: 2.5 stars.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most collections, this is a mixed bag ranging from 1 to 5-star stories. I'm not sure exactly what the editor was going for, but an interesting survey of American short stories over the past two centuries.

Included is an obscure Hemingway, which, if you didn't know who he was or his reputation, you would never want to read another story of his.

Faulkner's Barn Burning is as good as I remembered. I also enjoyed the stories from Richard Ford and Lorrie Moore. I was disappointed by the very short Lydia Davis story, which read more like a journal entry than a finished piece.

Well, quality is in the eye of the editor and it's certainly a personal opinion. Overall, a medium, 3-star read.

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really nice collection of stories. Of course, it's impossible to love every single story when there are so many different ones coming together, but I enjoyed the overview. Standouts for me were: Young Goodman Brown, The Tell-Tale Heart, Aunt Hetty on Matrimony, The Wife of His Youth, I Bought a Little City, The Third and Final Continent

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting collection. Some stories I skimmed, some I skipped. And sadly, I only liked a few.
My favorite story (and the reason I picked this up at the library): Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Third and Final Continent".

[Thisisnotmarta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pf amo os relatos.
Se algo me deixou moi claro este libro, é que disfruto moito mais as narracións feitas por mulleres (excepcionando ao meu querido Poe). Especialmente encantáronme as de Lydia Davis, Grace Paley e Eudora Welty.

[Gaëlle · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

Read for my American literature class

[Yasmina · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 i liked some of them and it was a pleasure to reread the tell-tale heart

[Ian Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw somewhere  - it may have been in the blurb of McSweeney's, another collection of shorts - that no one handles short stories better than the Americans. Now I've read quite a number of shorts I can see why this might be true. America is a multicultural, multi-ethnic nation so there is no single, derivative flavour to the literature, and they follow no rules. 

A delightful, diverse collection of short stories; among the best I've read.

[Mina Savic · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had to read 15 short stories from this collection for school. Ended up reading 9 of them. I don’t know if it’s the format or the selection but almost every one of them was either super boring or absolutely not understandable. My favorite one was definitely Atrophy by Edith Wharton just because I love her writing. Other than that just a struggle

[C Adán · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say I kind of dragged my feet through this collection. There were some great stories and I loved discovering new writers, but a lot were a real bore. It’s a mixed bag as is the case with a lot of anthologies, but I felt this one had more misses than hits.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un très bon recueil regroupant les premières œuvres fondamentales de la littérature américaine. Chaque histoire est unique et divertissante, nous plongeant un peu plus dans l'ambiance littéraire des débuts américains. (USA)

[Davis Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice collection

This collection of American short stories was an interesting read. The stories are quite diverse. This is coming from the different eras that the pieces were written.
All were enjoyable and worked well together.

[L ✨]

I won't rate it because I've only read the 6 short stories that were part of the syllabus which are:

The little man in black by Washington Irving [2★]

- This story wasn't bad, I just didn't like it. It's about a village who doesn't accept the new guy in town. It's about death & ostracism


The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe [4★]

i heard all things in heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.

- tw: graphic murder


The Real Right Thing by Henry James [2★]

- it could have been better
- Young journalist is asked to write the biography of his dead best friend, his ghost won't let him alone. Is he there to help or for something else?
- also about if you should write about the truth + what is the truth?


The Untold Lie by Sherwood Anderson [3★]

- the destiny of two men, one old, one young, as they decide what they should do with their lives
- what's the better choice ?
- set in a rural town

tw: pregnancy


A Late Encounter with the Enemy by Flannery O'Connor [2★]

- about a girl who wants everyone to know about her grandpa who was a general in his youth but things aren't as they seem...

tw: death


The Communist by Richard Ford [2★]

- just a guy and a boy killing geese and having different opinions about life i guess

[kenza · Rating 4 out of 5]

had to read this for uni but liked it very much nonetheless. two friends, the flowers and the third and final continent are my favorites

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this. It suited my attention span at the time :)

[Michael]

Not quite the collection I was hoping for. Felt “meh” on finishing many stories.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read most of these stories for my English degree :)

[nieve ·.༄࿔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

i liked hearts and hands short story best

[Billy Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good selection. Some of the stories are very short and there are some great, and some very disturbing, ones. They vary a lot and you do get a sense of time travel as you read through them

[Lily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok i found it lol. I've not read all the stories but honestly most of the ones chosen werent very good lol idk i just didn't think a lot of them were actually like relevant about modern american society apart from the few about racism, which the us is kinda built on. my favourites were probably young goodman brown and the tell-tale heart. but yeah overall a lot of the stories didn't feel like "american" short stories but more "historical" short stories, idk i was expecting some more relevant and better known stories that were just yeah more relevant

[Rob Stevens · Rating 3 out of 5]

31 short stories dating from 1807 to 2006. Only a few good ones (Bernard Malamud - The First Seven years, Flannery O'Conner - A Late Encounter with the Enemy). 2½ star.

The stories I liked the most:
Flannery O'Connor - A Late Encounter with the Enemy (1953)
Bernard Malamud - The First Seven Years (1950)
Edgar Allan Poe - The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)