23 Great Stories

by David Leavitt (Editor)

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
“To Build a Fire” by Jack London
“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant
“The Man Who Would Be King” by Rudyard Kipling
“The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
“The South” by Jorge Luis Borges
“Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor
“The Blind Dog” by R. K. Narayan
and Fifteen Other Classic Tales in One Volume
Masterpieces by some of the finest writers ever to make words come alive on paper, the stories in this volume have been selected to represent the full spectrum of the storyteller’s art. Here are works of suspense, mystery, allegory, and human drama. Given sharpened focus through insightful editorial commentary, each of these tales is distinctive in style and vision—and each is uniquely memorable.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

400 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 6, 2013

About the author

Leavitt is a graduate of Yale University and a professor at the University of Florida, where he is the co-director of the creative writing program. He is also the editor of Subtropics magazine, The University of Florida's literary review.

Leavitt, who is openly gay, has frequently explored gay issues in his work. He divides his time between Florida and Tuscany, Italy.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Give me the lucidity of Guy De Maupassant's "The Necklace," lure me with Oscar Wilde's deceptively effortless rendering of "The Happy Prince", entertain me with the subjectivity of classic Russian storytelling, as found in Anton Chekhov's "The Kiss," leave me entranced--and I really do mean in debilitating awe--with Edith Wharton's stupendous prose in"The Muse's Tragedy," and I will bask in the magic of such stories expertly placed.

"A good story is like a magic potion: It entrances. Yet like a magic potion, it is not easy to prepare." It's not very often that I really love a story collection (the last one I recall was New York Stories), but I found immense pleasure in this one. From the introduction to the snippets of information about each author and their story, it was clear that the editors of this collection breathed the very stories they chose. Their choice of information not only allowed me a moment of clarity and recollection as I remembered a few historical literary anecdotes, but it also gave me screenshots of facts I didn't know or had taken for granted. For instance: Grace Paley and Amy Hempel did not pen novels; or that Charlotte Perkins Gilman was influenced by her aunt, Harriet Beecher Stowe; or that instead of being the famous long form masterpiece that it is, Ulysses was started as a short story to be included in James Joyce's Dubliners.

She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired.

The simplicity of Joyce's "Eveline," a portrait of a woman's innermost thoughts on change, reminded me that I need to unearth A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for a second read. And I love when short stories remind you to read longer stories.

If I was bewitched by the simple ease with which Joyce told his story, I was taken with "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman's stunning portrayal of postpartum depression. I've read a few fictional pieces (and seen some movies) that highlight the incompetence of mental health treatment for women of that era, yet I've never come across such a chilling rendition that seems so deceptively clean in its structure, but is so multilayered in its psychological insight.

And if Edith Wharton had me in awe, I was enthralled with the storytelling of Chinelo Okparanta, a writer I hadn't heard about until now. "Fairness" is a graceful story that moves with spellbinding posture; a heartbreaking and imagistic narrative on self-imagery. I didn't want this story to end.

So many things to like:

William Trevor's humor and frankness.
Flannery O'Connor's gritty and delicious storyendings.
Alice Munro's "Munronian denouement."
Grace Paley's stylistic renderings.

And more...

For as the editors state:

Great stories are about asking questions, not answering them. They should leave you just a little perplexed, a little uncertain. They should provoke argument--with the author or with other readers or with yourself…They should make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.

These stories did all these things.

[Bibliophile Britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took me forever to read due to real-life getting in the way (college apps and flu season and apartment hunting, OH MY) but I absolutely loved it from start to finish. A great collection of classic short stories! If you are a "sprinter" rather than a "long-distance runner" when it comes to reading, I HIGHLY recommend!!!! All of the beauty of classic literature with none of the commitment. I got to revisit some of my all-time favorites- including Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper", Poe's creepy "The Fall of the House of Usher", and O. Henry's timeless "Gift of the Magi". I was also introduced to some new authors: I really enjoyed "Turkey Season" by Alice Munro, the desperate grace of Chinelo Okparanto's "Fairness", and the poignancy of "Today Will be a Quiet Day" by Amy Hempel. For those of you who have not yet experienced the magic of a brilliantly written short story, this is the place to start. A very lovingly compiled treasury of some beautiful work- in my opinion, the best this format has to offer!!!

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Book 4/100

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The editors say that they have chosen stories that “share a common preoccupation with the intricacies of human relationships and the ways in which the public world of politics, religion and culture impinges on what we like to think of as our private lives. This is what makes them great: to quote Grace Paley, they are about ‘everything’.”

They have achieved their purpose. This is not just a book of classic short stories. The editors have hand-picked each story with care and love, choosing stories from authors of diverse nationalities, years, cultures, ages and writing styles, all of which reveal something about human nature, the relationships between people, and the bonds between individuals that define society. Their passion for the short story and for cultivating the love of the short story in readers is shown in the introduction, and they even explain elements of stories for the reader to analyse, namely voice, time, point of view, tense, plot and tone – all of which play a distinct part in the compactness of the short story. Each story is prefaced by an introduction of the author and the story, helping readers to place the story in its rightful context, and guiding us to draw bridges to our own context.

The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
Poe had a troubled life. Poor all his life, he was orphaned, abandoned by his foster family, married his own cousin who died of tuberculosis, then himself died on the streets of disease, alcohol and drugs. This translates into his writing. This quintessential American gothic story has all the elements of its genre – stormy weather, a once majestic but now dilapidated and mysterious haunted house, mental illness, death and a tomb, and perpetual gloominess. The narrator, an outsider to the darkness, relates with foreboding his encounter with the Ushers, and the almost supernatural terror that haunts this house where a mad creative genius and his elusive ill sister live and die.

The Necklace – Guy de Maupassant
I've read this many times, but never in full, and so never realised that this is a critique of the working class. Those who live within our humble means are contented, those who seek glory inevitably meet ruin. Ironically, it takes being poor and coarse for Madame Loisel to be able to speak to Madame Forestier like an equal. The necklace which brought her downfall has also brought about her redemption.

The Happy Prince – Oscar Wilde
Like many fairy tales, this is deeper and darker than its lighthearted tone implies. A swallow falls in love with a statue of a prince, and the two give up all they have to help the poor. There is social injustice, with the poor suffering while the rich go on frivolously, and the swallow and prince lose their dreams, their beauty, and their lives in their small efforts to help the suffering people. Their efforts seem almost futile in the face of such a huge injustice, but God sees, and rewards them with a place in heaven.

The Adventure of the Speckled Band – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A man kills his stepdaughter by sending a poisonous adder through a ventilator between their bedrooms down a fake bell pull to her bed. It's a strange solution to the mystery, yet logical and believable, especially when pieced together by Sherlock Holmes' logical deductions, and told through the voice of Dr Watson, who, as ever, begrudges his friend's flaws, but acknowledged his genius in a down-to-earth manner. This is no cozy mystery. It's suspenseful and thrilling, with a touch of action and excitement.

The Kiss – Anton Chekhov
The kiss was an accident, a trivial moment of no importance to the girl, but of extraordinary significance to Ryabovitch. This ordinary event changed his worldview, coloured his perspective on his life and his surroundings, and gave him impossible fantasies. His own ordinariness made him worthy of dreams. Yet, when the truth finally hit home, and the rose-tinted glasses came off, his ordinariness became the marker of mediocrity. What is ordinary and extraordinary? How much do chance influences on our perspectives of ourselves and the world affect our characters and our relationship with the world?

The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Perkins was a feminist, and her story demonstrates the absurdity of trying to cure postpartum depression by keeping a lady isolated in a room without entertainment or friends. The first person narrator's descent, in boredom, from simple anxiety into outright psychosis is fascinating. Her feelings towards her husband change, from being understanding of his loving and well-meant though unfortunate treatment for her, to being bitter and resentful and ultimately apathetic to his feelings. It's hard to say if the ugly wallpaper of her room that torments her causes her downward spiral, or if her impressions of it are a result of her illness, but from being merely ugly, it tortures her till she sees in it shaking the bars that trap her, and finally becomes that woman herself.

The Gift of the Magi – O. Henry
This is another story that I've heard of but never read in full. It's much better in the original form. O.Henry's writing is funny with clever puns and lots of heart. The analogy of the magi is a brilliant one that ties the story to the meaning of Christmas. Though the story is tragic, Della and Jim share a beautiful love and generosity that shows that our material expectations need not be met for us to be happy.

Suggestion – Ada Leverson
This story is aptly named. The London marriage market is a fickle, impressionistic thing, and our narrator Cecil, through hints, his father's marriage to young Laura, then in remorse, for his father is hot-tempered, he tries to arrange a courtship between Laura and Adrian. Though the ladies in this story desire marriage from love, Cecil uses it as a tool for manipulation and selfish gains. Through mere suggestions, too, Leverson shows us via Cecil's demeanour and thoughts that he's homosexual, and this influences his ideas on marriage. Leverson is best known for her relationship with Oscar Wilde, but she displays her writing talent and dry wit in this story.

The Muse's Tragedy – Edith Wharton
Mrs Anerton seems like a lady from a time so different from ours, yet her tragedy is the same tragedy that many celebrities even today face. Dignified and respected, she was the inspiration of the poet Rendle's masterpieces. People blush to see her. Our narrator is infatuated with her. But she lives in the torment of never having been loved by Rendle, of having had to put fake asterisks in his writings published posthumously to maintain the image that he did love her. The heartbreak of her private life is reinforced by the facade of her public life, a reputation that continues to affect her life after Rendle's death and never allows her a normal life.

The Man Who Would Be King – Rudyard Kipling
Kipling, an Anglo-Indian, lived most of his life in India, and this story is a reflection of British imperialism. Two British men, poorly educated, with nothing more than big dreams and abundant optimism, find their way to Kafiristan in Afghanistan, and set up a kingdom amidst the tribesmen, who believe they are gods. Kipling captures many elements of the imperial feeling – the adventurous desire for kingdom expansion, the optimism of the common man about his ability for greatness, the motivation not just to be a king of "inferior" people, but to do so to be the Queen's knight, and the thought that kingdom expansion was best brought about through guns and religion. But not all is rosy. The clash of cultures brings the downfall of Britons who cannot respect other cultures, and those who would be gods will discover they are only men.

Tobermory – Saki
H.H. Munro wrote fiction under the pen name Saki. In this satirical story, he highlights one of the major forces opposing progress: man's desire for self-preservation. A cat able to speak fluently is an incredible discovery, but the characters wish Appins would die rather than to allow further progress of the sort, because a speaking cat is an unfamiliar danger that threatens their pride and the tenuous appearances that preserve tenuous society. The characters are comical in their fear of having their private secrets exposed, but are we any different? Do we have our own hidden secrets, and what do these say about our own hypocrisy?

To Build a Fire – Jack London
This is a chilly story, literally. The man knows the dangers of nature, he's tough, and he skilfully beats back panic. But nature is a beast, and we cannot truly know it without appreciating how frail we are compared to its majesty. This the man doesn't do until it's too late, as his numb frozen hands burn from the flaming matches that he can only carry between his wrists. London's paints a vivid picture of the cold, describing the man's every sensation from the initial tingling to the eventual inability to move or know where his fingers are. The writing is unsentimental, yet manages to arouse panic and sympathy.

Eveline – James Joyce
Escaping away from her violent father to Buenos Aires with her lover is a dream, so why does Eveline, in the final climactic scene, cling to the railings and turn Frank a passive face, refusing to go? As a clue, she'd just prayed for God to guide her steps. Staying behind is unattractive and unromantic. She'd likely be left in a cycle of dull tough mediocrity. But it's the responsible thing to do, and her woman's heart, heroic in choosing dullness, is ultimately unable to abandon the family that needs her.

The South – Jorge Luis Borges
I never seem to get Argentine fiction. This is another one of those stories with a dreamlike haze over it. I read that Borges said that this story could be read as a narrative, or in another way. This other way might be that the second half of the story is the narrator Dahlmann's idealised heroic (in a gaucho or cowboy way) death, while he in reality lies weak on a hospital bed dying of septicaemia from a ridiculously gained forehead wound.

The Blind Dog – R.K. Narayan
This story can be read as a simple narrative of how the affectionate relationship between a blind beggar and a stray dog turns into a tyrannical one when the beggar puts the dog into a leash, and about how the dog, even after he is freed, returns to his master. Read this way, it's a heartbreaking story of the loyalty of dogs even to ungrateful, undeserving masters. But this story is also a fable of power and tyranny. It is for us to draw parallels to relationships between parent and child, man and wife, or, in Narayan's British Indian world, between empires and colonies.

Reunion – John Cheever
This is Cheever's shortest story, and the shortest in the book, but it packs a punch. A vignette of an afternoon shows the effects of alcoholism, even on the wealthy, with the boy's father verbally abusing waiters, embarrassing his young son, and preventing the formation of any personal connection with his own son. The narrator never speaks of his own feelings, but he is clearly mildly horrified, and though he does not say why that was the last time he saw his father, we can imagine the reasons.

The Loudest Voice – Grace Paley
What is a Christmas play to a Jew? An affront to religious beliefs, an inevitable part of assimilating in American culture, or a means of cultivating and displaying acting talent? Can it ever be innocent? It may perhaps only be a small challenge in the immigrant experience, but it is the way immigrants handle every such challenge that defines how well they succeed, and how much they sacrifice.

Good Country People – Flannery O'Connor
After receiving a good education, O'Connor was forced by lupus to move back to her hometown. Joy, or Hulga, who has, in addition to a PhD, a wooden leg and a cardiac condition, is a parallel for O'Connor. She and her mother Mrs Hopewell are contrasts – her anger for Mrs Hopewell's facade of kindness, her atheism for Mrs Hopewell's Christianity, her disdain for country people for Mrs Hopewell's appreciation of the same, and her high education for Mrs Hopewell's lack of it. As a result Mrs Hopewell doesn't understand her daughter, simplifying her to the image of a child as she simplifies the world to good and evil. In a tale told with an ironical yet matter-of-fact voice, Hulga is conned by a fake bible salesman and has her wooden leg, a metaphor for her soul, stolen, and in the process her subconscious desire for love and affection is uncovered and betrayed. Behind her rudeness and outrage we find a girl victimised by her condition to a life below what she has been educated for, and the "good old country people" turn out more complex than they appear.

The Day We Got Drunk On Cake – William Trevor
Trevor's economical prose enhances the feeling of detached drunkenness, while starkly contrasting the overwrought emotions of the first person narrator. Not that we are told of his emotions, but we realise, slowly, through his repetitive calling of someone named Lucy who is now staying with a Frank, that something more than drunkenness is driving his madness. And does Swann invite him out purely for entertainment, or does he actually want to bring Mike out to get away from his heartaching loneliness? Nothing dramatic happens, but slowly, as he meets others also agonising over love, he learns of the transience of his heartache, and the story ends on a wistful note as he realises that his sadness will one day be buried in memory beneath the funny moments of the day.

The Turkey Season – Alice Munro
The narrator looks back on her life at fourteen, when she took a part time job at a turkey farm at Christmas. An "educated" girl, her mixture of youthful innocence and knowing is exposed to the grit of farm life, worklife politics in the small community of gutters and pluckers, and sexuality. While plunging her hand into the dark bowels of turkeys, she learns how it feels to desire intimacy from an unobtainable man, guesses at the form of hidden homosexuality, and experiences gossip in the world of adults. It's a coming of age that is wistful but truthful, and I imagine the narrator as a silver haired old lady in a light cardigan gazing out a window at a golden brown landscape while telling us the story with a smile playing on her lips.

The Wellman Twins – Mary Robison
A pair of twins in a state of transition between high school and medical school spend a day together. Robison captures, in a flat, disinterested writing style, the idleness, restlessness and frivolity of their contemporary upper middle class lives. Nothing very much happens, and that is the point. In their comfortable lives, with all material needs provided for and no real problems, their only unhappiness comes from them annoying each other, yet they are so inherently intimate that this is hardly a problem. Bluey's irritation and Greer's flippancy are derived from an undercurrent of meaninglessness and triviality. The ending, though an open one, is conclusive, hinting that the twins' state of limbo will not persist.

Today Will Be a Quiet Day – Amy Hempel
This story seems to have lots of mysterious gaps at first. You understand the relationship between the squabbling kids, the encounters with tragedies that they keep hidden, and the relationship they have with their awkward but indulging dad, but something is left unsaid. Where is the mother? Why does the father want to know more about his kids' lives? Why are the threesome going on a day's outing to nowhere? Why the awkward distance between the father and his children? And why do they sleep on sleeping bags in his master bedroom? Then it hits you – the parents are divorced, and the kids are spending a day with their father whom they do not usually live with. Suddenly the mystery makes sense. The darkness that lingers in the kids' stories and jokes, and the unrequited affection of the father for his children, becomes suddenly poignant.

Fairness – Chinelo Okparanta
In this moving story, we have a glimpse of how peer pressure to be fair affects the self-esteem of African girls, and the desperate lengths they go to to achieve even a tinge of fairness. To be fair is not only to be beautiful, but also to be talented and good. We, like the father, know skin colour has nothing to do with character. Our narrator does too, yet she persists in her ill-fated attempts. How true this is for the rest of us who want to be skinny or muscular, have large eyes or rosier lips. Are the lengths we go to for beauty worth it?

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the stories and thinking about them. Some of them were interesting to read. Some of them, however, I had to wonder how they ever got listed as a great short story?!

[Wole Talabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed most of this collection of stories - both older and modern classics a few of which I'd read before and some of which were new to me.

Out of the 23 stories, I loved 11 of them, liked 9, found 1 to be just OK and didn't really care for 2 of them. Which makes this a very strong collection.

[MJ (readknight)]

The Kiss
The Muse's Tragedy
Tobermory
To Build a Fire
Eveline
Reunion

[Lizzy Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

These stories, written by some of the most famous in the world of literature, are surprising merely shortened versions of longer novel-length stories. In other words, surprisingly, I don't see the sort of attention to technique that I see in contemporary short stories.

It almost feels as if short stories today have to employ the ruses of technique for readers with short attention spans...