Fifty Great Short Stories

by Milton Crane (Editor)

ISBN: 0553277456

50 Great Short Stories is a comprehensive selection from the world's finest short fiction. The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan and O'Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common—the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world's fiction.

Contents

The Garden Party—Katherine Mansfield
The Three-Day Blow—Ernest Hemingway
The Standard of Living—Dorothy Parker
The Saint—V.S. Pritchett
The Other Side of the Hedge—E. M. Forster
Brooksmith—Henry James
The Jockey—Carson McCullers
The Courting of Dinah Shadd—Rudyard Kipling
The Shot—Alexander Poushkin (translated by T. Keane)
Graven Image—John O'Hara
Putois—Anatole France (translated by Frederic Chapman)
Only the Dead Know Brooklyn—Thomas Wolfe
A.V. Laider—Max Beerbohm
The Lottery—Shirley Jackson
The Masque of the Red Death—Edgar Allan Poe
Looking Back—Guy de Maupassant (translated by H.N.P. Sloman)
The Man Higher Up—O. Henry
The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse—William Saroyan
The Other Two—Edith Wharton
Theft—Katherine Anne Porter
For Esmé—With Love and Squalor—J.D. Salinger
The Man of the House—Frank O'Connor
The Man Who Shot Snapping Turtles—Edmund Wilson
The Gioconda Smile—Aldous Huxley
The Curfew Tolls—Stephen Vincent Benét
Father Wakes Up the Village—Clarence Day
Ivy Day in the Committee Room—James Joyce
The Chrysanthemums—John Steinbeck
The Door—E. B. White
An Upheaval—Anton Chekhov
How Beautiful with Shoes—Wilbur Daniel Steele
A Haunted House—Virginia Woolf
The Catbird Seat—James Thurber
The Schartz-Metterklume Method—“Saki” (H.H. Munro)
The Death of a Bachelor—Arthur Schnitzler
The Apostate—George Milburn
The Phoenix—Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Evening Sun—William Faulkner
The Law—Robert M. Coates
The Tale—Joseph Conrad
A Girl from Red Lion, P.A.—H.L. Mencken
Main Currents of American Thought—Irwin Shaw
The Ghosts—Lord Dunsany
The Minister's Black Veil—Nathaniel Hawthorne
A String of Beads—W. Somerset Maugham
The Golden Honeymoon—Ring Lardner
The Man Who Could Work Miracles—H.G. Wells
The Foreigner—Francis Steegmuller
Thrawn Janet—Robert Louis Stevenson
The Chaser—John Collier


(This edition is the 51st printing by Bantam)

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Literature, Anthologies, Collections, Literary Fiction

470 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1952

Reviews

[Guillermo Galvan · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, this book isn't a collection of 50 great short stories. It's a collection of 50 well-written stories, but it takes more than solid grammar to slam out an awesome story.

Some of the stories were dreadfully boring. A few shining stars had me signing into Goodreads to add more books by those writers. The rest were so-so, pretty decent, and "Okay."

This collection lacks in variety. The majority of stories have a snobbish, white male, pro-American perspective. If you like stuff from the New Yorker, then this book is for you. I like a little controversy in my reading. The excessively safe themes made this book bland.

For any writers out there, I recommend this book for its strong writing. It's not much of a leisure read, and after a while you'll feel like you're back in high school English class. I would have given this book a much higher rating if it wasn't for all the dull stories that dragged this one down.

[ꕥ Ange_Lives_To_Read ꕥ]

30.An Upheaval 1886, by Anton Chekov: A governess is insulted when her room is searched by the lady of the house, who is looking for a stolen brooch. Seems like a chapter from a book rather than a complete story.
29.The Door 1939, by EB White: Hard to believe this bleak, psychedelic tale is from the same dude who wrote Charlotte's Web
28.The Chrysanthemums 1946, by John Steinbeck: A great one to start off with! A sad story set in the depression about a woman fooled by a shady peddler when he pretends to take an interest in her flowers.
27. Ivy Day in the Committee Room 1946, by James Joyce: I have never read anything by Joyce, including this story which was the first one in this collection that I just couldn't get through. Even the title bored me.
26. Father Wakes Up the Village 1935, by Clarence Day: Obnoxious and unlikeable story about a jerk obsessed with having ice in his drink, excerpted from "Life with Father." I tried watching that movie a few times, because it seemed like something I would like but based on this story it makes sense that it didn't work for me.
25. The Curfew Tolls 1935, by Stephen Vincent Benet: A thought-provoking story about how different the world might be if certain men were born just a few years sooner or later.
24. The Giaconda Smile 1921, by Alduous Huxley: Huxley uses a modern-day (to him) woman to imagine the type of scenario that might account for the much-discussed expression worn by the Mona Lisa. Very cool.
23. The Man Who Shot Snapping Turtles 1942, by Edmund Wilson: Not sure why I liked this weird story of a guy obsessed with protecting the ducks in his pond from snapping turtles. Then he does a 180 and nixes the ducks to build a canned turtle soup empire.
22. The Man of the House 1949, by Frank O'Connor: a young Irish boy, a good boy, does a very naughty thing and is forgiven by his mother.
21. A Good Man is Hard to Find 1953, by Flannery O'Connor: Wow! This is one of those famous short stories that I was aware of but never read. I always assumed it was about dating and trying to find a husband. Holy cow was I wrong. Brutal and disturbing, I'll never forget this one.
20. Theft 1930, by Katherine Anne Porter: For me, a forgettable story about the theft of a purse.
19. The Other Two 1904, by Edith Wharton: Although certainly more scandalous in 1904, the story still seems relatable today; about a man who’s keeps running into his twice-divorced wife’s ex-husbands socially.
18. The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse 1938, by William Saroyan: The title pretty much says it all except that now I want to read everything this man ever wrote.
17. The Man Higher Up 1908, by O Henry: There's a sucker born every minute, sometimes you're the windshield and sometimes you're the bug. A long, wordy joke that took a long time to get to the punchline.
16. Looking Back 1951, by Guy de Maupassant: A contessa and a priest discuss their paths and conclude that love and pain are inextricably combined, but if you don't have them in your life you don't have a life
15. The Masque of the Red Death 1842, by Edgar Allan Poe: Now THAT was a pandemic. Masks and lockdowns didn't work then, either.
14. The Lottery 1948, by Shirley Jackson: Of COURSE I'm reading this one again. It's as chilling the 50th time as the first.
13. A. V. Laider 192o, by Max Beerbohm: A guy on vacation gets fooled big time by a fellow guest who claims he can read palms.
12. Only the Dead Know Brooklyn 1932, by Thomas Wolfe: Maybe the dead also know what the point of this story was or why it's considered great.
11. Putois 1915, by Anatole France: If you're a M*A*S*H fan, think Captain Tuttle; Seinfeld fans, think Susie.
10.Graven Image 1943, by John O'Hara: Perfect illustration of my college Marketing professor's favorite phrase: When you make the sale, stop talking.
9. The Shot 1831, by Aleksandr Pushkin: Meh. Russian dude nurses a grudge and practices shooting; then declines to kill his nemesis when he has the chance.
8. The Courting of Dinah Shadd 1890, by Rudyard Kipling: This seemed more like a chapter pulled from a larger novel and it was a little hard to get into because of the thick dialect used by the Mulvaney character. But after settling into the rhythm it's a satisfying story about a cursed union.
7. The Jockey 1941, by Carson McCullers: The first in this collection where I had my usual reaction to short stories. I have no idea what the point of this one was or why it's considered great.
6. Brooksmith 1892, by Henry James: Having tried and failed to read several of James' novels, I'm happy to find that I can tolerate and even enjoy him in short story format. This could be described as Bertie and Jeeves meet Bartleby the Scrivener.
5. The Other Side of the Hedge 1947, by EM Forster: This one was kind of like an abstract painting, different people probably see different things. For me it was about the question of progress and technology - at what point does it start to detract from the human experience.
4. The Saint 1947, by VS Pritchett: A man describes how at age 17 he lost his faith in the Church of the Last Purification, of Toronto, Canada. Funny and poignant.
3. The Standard of Living 1941, by Dorothy Parker: I love Dorothy Parker so much! I defy anyone to read this story and not picture Mike Myers as Dr. Evil when he discovers a million dollars isn't what it used to be.
2. The Three-Day Blow 1925, by Ernest Hemingway: During a storm, two young men sit in a cabin in Missouri getting shitfaced drunk. They discuss baseball, books, and women. Then they decide to grab their shotguns and go out hunting.
1. The Garden Party 1937, by Katherine Mansfield: Laura Sheridan feels guilty when her well-to-do family goes ahead with a party on the day they learn of the death of a neighbor, who is poor.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Indeed great short stories!!
Great names like O'Connor, Steinbeck, Poe, and Hemingway doesn't dissapoint..

Not always easy to read, but if you are commited to investing yourself in this short stories, then your time and patience will be rewarded..

Some of my favorites as folows:

**Only the Dead know Brooklyn by Thomas Wolfe** 5 stars
**The Masque of the Read Death by Edgar Allan Poe** 5 stars
**A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor** 5 stars
**How Beautiful with Shoes by Wilbur Daniel Steele** 5 stars

This four stories are worth every single penny in purchasing this collection!!!
Milton Crane has done a great job..

A colorful, vibrant, and diverse blend: fantasy, horror, romanze, thriller, crime, classics, and much more!
Reading these stories, you will see and experience the world with many eyes!!!

Happy reading..

Dean;)

[Tristan · Rating 3 out of 5]

WHAT MAKES A GREAT SHORT STORY?

The sudden unforgettable revelation of character; the vision of a world through another's eyes; the glimpse of truth; the capture of a moment in time.

All this the short story, at its best, is uniquely capable of conveying, for in its very shortness lies its greatest strength.

It can discover depths of meaning in the casual word or action; it can suggest in a page what could not be stated in a volume.

-- Milton Crane

In my fledgling first few years as a more dedicated reader of prose, the short story anthology was my go-to format. Primarily it was a wonderful way to keep my at that time multi-tasking, by visual culture addled, jumpy brain engaged long enough to absorb one contained narrative, but I also steadfastly relied on it to transport me to a great wealth of worlds and settings, to plant me smack-dab in the heads of fictitious strangers, who naturally didn't remain strangers for long. The "grand novel" to a young, somewhat neurotic, compulsively anal me, was off bounds for a while until I had proven my mettle by consuming shorter works. Self-denial, thy name is Tristan, or so it seemed.

In hindsight though, I see now I was in fact unconsciously adopting the mindset of the journeyman (though initially not in the sense that I actually wanted to apply what I learned to writing myself): Start small, first dissect the mechanics of fiction in its most compressed format, and only then proceed on to bigger - yet not necessarily greater - things.

This approach - even though its execution was far too strictly observed by me - in the end served me well. During that process, acquaintances were made with many a writer, some entirely unsuspected. At the very least, I discovered more of them than if I would have delved into the real meat of their oeuvre first. Short stories have always been somewhat neglected or found to be inconsequential, regarded as something most writers grudgingly have to dabble in to beef up their income between larger projects. A stance I -and masters of the form - have always heavily disagreed with, but I won't further expound on that here.

In short, it helped me in making my taste reveal itself to me. Soon, if a bit rabidly, I started acquiring the collected works of those individuals who managed to speak to me. Which turned out to be a not insignificant number, pity my wallet!

For lovers of the format with a classical bent, Milton Crane's - whose name without fail manages to remind me of lovable dweeb Niles Crane from Frasier, but that's neither here or there - 1952 anthology has been a mainstay for more than half a century.

Running the gammit from technically sound, yet slighty tedious to masterfully invigorating, an anthology like this is bound to be a bit of a muddled affair. Its inherent constraints reveal themselves pretty quickly: the cut-off point at 1952 (thus missing a large chunk of 20th century writing), and the primary focus on Anglo-Saxon writers, with the odd French and Russian one thrown in for good measure being the most apparent ones. Tough choices have to be made of course, and the editor must be applauded for not lazily picking just the best-known, predictable examples. How it plays to a modern audience, I haven't the foggiest idea. A supplement to Crane's orginal selection might be in order here. Surely this can be done.

Still, if you're looking for a comprehensive anthology featuring almost all of the classic masters of the form, you could do far worse. Within, the entire spectrum of human emotion is contained. Dip away, I say!

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a slog. Took me, um, three months to get through. Dreary. Too much racism, sometimes addressed, sometimes accepted. Too much mysterious jewelry and women (both wives and governesses) as ornament. Too much alcohol. Very Western, usually bleak or at least bleary. A few gems, but I can't be bothered to go check which ones they were.

[Seth Augenstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fucking collection.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvelous collection of some of the best short-stories ever written. Includes many famous authors, known to all of us, and a few authors I wondered why I had not heard of well before now.

I have reviewed most of the stories separately as I have read them, as I spread this book over the expanse of a full year.

[Kat Trina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of course the quality of the stories compiled in this edition are excellent: they were written by the masters. But that doesn't mean that all of them were a pleasure to read. Some were fantastic: I really enjoyed a solid third of the stories there, but only a third. I particularly enjoyed virginia woolf's haunted house, thomas wolfe's "only the dead know brooklyn", dorothy parker's "standard of living", shirley jackson's "lottery " which i had already read, and especially Francis Steegmuller's "the foreigner", among others. But a lot of them were uncomfortable to read because of racism and sexism: particularly william faulkner's "That Evening Sun" and Aldous Huxley's "The Gioconda Smile. The writers can be excused, since they were products of an earlier, less tolerant age. And I suppose the editor can too, since it was published in '52. But it's a bit awkward to read the collection as literary essentials. Should republish new edition, relabeled as "50 Great Short Stories for Old White Guys".

[Mellow · Rating 2 out of 5]

They were more like 50 OK stories. Most of them were boring, in many there was absolutely nothing happening. The extra star is for the 5 good stories that I enjoyed.

[Milena · Rating 4 out of 5]

For writers this book is an exercise. An exercise of minimalism, of trained imagination and crafted words. All stories have their flavour, and exposing that simple truth alone, the book unveils a great deal about voice. It also relaxes the writing muscle, shaving off the edge of theme - the hovering nemesis.
A random selection: "Putois" for the comic human nature, "A good man is hard to find" for it's remarkable cynicism, "The Gioconda Smile" for society gumption and uptight drama of uncanny involuntary humour, and "The courting of Dinah Shadd" and "The Chrysanthemums" just because.

[John Crlencic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth it for Hemingway's "The Three-Day Blow."

[Daniel Clausen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a rainy day in 2021 amid the pandemic in Nagasaki, Japan. I was faithfully wearing my mask that day in the Tsutaya bookstore on the 4th floor of the Coco Walk shopping mall. As I took the escalator to the 4th floor, I saw (fake) books lined up in glass bookcases to tease the bookstore's arrival. As I got off the elevator, there was nothing to separate the elevator from the bookstore—no barrier between the bookstore and the non-bookstore.

I found a seat by the window overlooking the Ferris wheel and the Urakami section of Nagasaki. I began reading whatever paperback I had—perhaps it was Murakami Haruki's 1Q84. At that time, possibly fearing the pandemic would be a never-ending ordeal, I had begun to read tomes (1,000 pages or more books). As I took breaks from reading my tome, I would wander over to the English language book section, approximately three shelves of books, no more than a selection of 50 books in total. It was there that I found "50 Great Short Stories." I wouldn't buy the book then. Instead, I would use the book when I went to the Tsutaya bookstore to take little breaks from whatever book I was reading at the time. (Later, I would indulge in another tome, "War and Peace."). Little by little, the book and I were becoming friends.

And yet, for many years, I hesitated. During my little breaks with this book, I would start and stop a short story. My heart was elsewhere. Years passed this way: 2022, 2023, until the year was 2024. I was different then. I understood that my time at my current job was reaching a kind of end. I could no longer indulge in tomes. I needed to be more practical. Grounded.

And so, I made a decision. I would buy a copy of "50 Great Short Stories." I started the book at the end of 2024, a time when I was in the middle of writing my own short story collection.

Now, as I am about to finish this book of short stories, I sit on a wide, flat stone in a traditional Japanese garden, meditating. I am thinking of my own "great" short story. The book looks over me with a stern face. "When you are ready, pick up the pencil."

I reach deep into myself…I take a deep breath. The garden, with its stones and flora, feels like a sanctuary. The book beside me urges me with a whisper.

I glance at the book—its cover, worn from my frequent handlings, speaks of many journeys taken and countless tales told. Mansfield, Hemingway, Steinbeck…my teachers.

Another deep breath. I reach for the pencil. I grip it tightly.

The greatest lesson each of these writers has taught…

Mansfield writes in her short story, "The Garden Party": "And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a…"

I know how the sentence should end: beginning.

[Jersy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This didn't earn 5 stars because I loved all of the stories. Of course not, that's hardly possible.
It earned 5 stars as a collection: There was a wide variety of topics, writing styles and types of stories. It covers a time frame of over 50 years and presents different influential authors. Everyone who enjoys modern classics will find somethings they like in here.
I, for myself, liked the majority of stories and the ones I didn't care for still seemed well written. My favourites include stories by Shirley Jackson, John Collier, Dorothy Parker and Edith Wharton. Not only was the collection fun to read but it also helped me discover authors I want to read more of.

So, if you want to get into (modern) classics or short stories, or already enjoy these, this might be something for you. It was created in the 1950's, so just don't read this with wrong expectations.

[Patrick Sherriff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ten Great Short Stories, Two Dozen Well-Written But Pretty Staid Stories and a Bunch of Filler From Famous Folks' Lesser Works would be an awful title, but a far more accurate one.

[Levent Pekcan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Çok tanınmış yazarların son derece bayık öykülerinden oluşan, basbayağı sıkıcı bir seçki. Tavsiye edemeyeceğim.

[Alison Shaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fifty Great Reasons to Abandon English Literature

1. The literary establishment, being under the hegemony of white men until the present day, is notoriously awful at anthologizing good literature within $8 mass market paperbacks.
2. Milton Crane, who must have been some sort of idiot, was allowed the editorship of the volume in question.
3. Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party."
4. The New Yorker magazine, during the 1940s and 1950s, especially.
5. The dry, turgid prose of what was once considered at the top of the prose market.
6. The fact that your work will never be recognized for its greatness, while George Milburn, John Collier, and O. Henry are considered good enough to make it into this book.
7. English literature is boring on purpose, don't you know? Reading isn't supposed to be fun.
8. The fact that knowing what the word "crepuscular" means will not substantially affect your chances of getting laid tonight or any night.
9. Trees are our friends and ought to be spared the indignity of having any words written by Rudyard Kipling printed on them.
10. The fact that Rudyard Kipling, of "The White Man's Burden" fame, was awarded the Nobel Prize.
11. The fact that Aldous Huxley was never awarded the Nobel Prize despite being under consideration nine times.
12. The fact that no one talks about V. S. Pritchett anymore, despite the resounding genius of "The Saint."
13. Milton Crane, like most white men who do not talk to women, chose one of Katherine Anne Porter's worst stories for this collection.
14. The fact there is only one story in this collection authored by Irwin Shaw.
15. Japanese literature seems to be far superior.
16. Every woman collected in this anthology seems to be done the disservice of having their worst possible story included, seemingly to prove Milton Crane's theory that women aren't worth talking to.
17. The mass market paperback is among the worst symptoms of society's continual devaluation of literature.
18. The fact that reading cannot save you from yourself.
19. The fact that a book cannot think for you.
20. The fact that thinking is difficult, and more treacherous than not thinking.
21. The cost of books that you will never read but will still populate every free corner of your place of residence.
22. The fact that the volume of volumes you possess rarely correlates with the size of your sexual organs.
23. The fact that your parents will be lonely if you read instead of talking to them.
24. The fact that there is never enough time to read.
25. Eye dialect written by anyone besides Flannery O'Connor or William Faulkner.
26. The Canon and its detractors.
27. The Canon and its defenders.
28. The presence of literary references within literature, adding another book to the already-growing list of books you ought to read but never will.
29. Grammar and its antecedents in the guillotine and the club.
30. You will hurt your wrists attempting to read Ducks, Newburyport or various other maximalist fictions.
31. The Department of English at your alma mater will never pay you for your contributions to literary theory.
32. The public, being entirely devoid of literary knowledge, will think you some sort of weirdo.
33. Good literature is often forgotten.
34. The fact that not even the most beautiful line in all of poetry can save the life of a dying child.
35. The state of the short story, which is seemingly still around because of the labors of George Saunders and the ghost of Denis Johnson.
36. The fact that "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn" is a far better title than the story that succeeds it.
37. The fact that your favourite author will probably turn out to be a terrible anti-Semite and you will continuously struggle to justify your love of their work.
38. The fact that no one you know in real life will ever read your favourite book, even if you lend them a copy, because who has time for reading these days?
39. The fact that you will waste your life trying to read the best and finding only mediocrity.
40. Milton Crane died, apparently without repenting his sin of including "The Foreigner" by Francis Steegmuller in this collection.
41. The fact that Joseph Conrad is known primarily in this country for apparently being a racist, and not his sublime fiction.
42. Douglas Adams is dead.
43. That not a single story present in this collection was authored by Charles Chestnutt.
44. That not a single story present in this collection was authored by Sherwood Anderson.
45. That not a single story present in this collection was authored by Jean Toomer.
46. That not a single story present in this collection was authored by Kate Chopin.
47. The fact that Milton Crane's ghost still haunts the department halls at the University of Chicago, alongside spectres of Saul Bellow and Allan Bloom.
48. The fact that nobody reads anymore and who has enough time to read all those books you have anyway?
49. The fact that reading is a solitary loved rarely shared by anyone you meet.
50. The fact that your time would be better spent doing something useful, like electrical engineering or prostitution, than reading anything anthologized by Milton Crane from 1952.

[Andria Potter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actual rating, 4.5 ⭐ rounded up. Several favorites and I'm glad I finally got to read this as it's been on my shelves for ages. Many favorite authors within and I may reread this years later.

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read every short story in this book out loud to my wife and son. My wife fell asleep during all but three of them, often by the second paragraph. The first 37 short stories came between September 29, 2018 and January 26, 2019 and were dictated toward my wife's pregnant belly. He ended up being born on January 26, a day on which we (I) happened to read two aloud. The remainder of the stories were read from February 1 through to May 17, sometimes going weeks without reading one but always returning with the same intention - familiarizing our son with the cadence of spoken English.

My favorites in this collection were:
The Other Side of the Hedge - E. M. Forster
Putois - Anatole France
A. V. Laider - Max Beerbohm
The Man Higher Up - O. Henry
The Man Who Shot Snapping Turtles - Edmund Wilson
The Door - E. B. White
How Beautiful with Shoes - Wilbur Daniel Steele
Main Currents of American Thought - Irwin Shaw
The Golden Honeymoon - Ring Lardner

The majority of the rest were roughly what one might expect from a batch of "Great" short stories selected in 1952 by a man named Milton: stuffy, time-weary, and frankly rather boring.

[Daniely Feitoza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although many boring and crazy stories, the good ones worth the reading

[Akanksha Saxena · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for everyone who enjoys brevity!

[Hector · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes!! I just finished this with little time on the clock to complete my challenge, yay me!!

Also yes I'm writing this review in a bus, on my way to a friend's for new years. I think that is relevant and fitting for this nice compilation of short stories that feel like they have to be read in buses, in terminals, in planes, in transition. I have always thought a short story is like a connection between two points, like a transfer or a change of state (as oppose to say, a novel, which is more like a long stay, a holiday; or a poem which is rather a blink in space-time, a windwhirl)

Although these stories have a homogeneity to them, born from all being by "big names" in western literature, I rather enjoyed them! I started my reading days as a novel reader, but recently I'm much more fond of short stories. I like how they sometimes seem to be very experimental, like exercises in pace, in character, in ambience, or so. How they often play with language to comprise long periods of time into a handful of pages, or to extend an instant to several paragraphs. This was for me the most interesting aspect of them: the language. Yes it was all English, but how well did the authors stretched and fold it on itself

This way I found it very varied in stead of its homogeneity. Fun little collection I'll be back to, recommended for everyone who is or wants to get into short stories

Happy new year everyone!!

[Tereza Vítková · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super příležitost, jak se seznámit s autory, po kterých bych běžně v knihkupectví nesáhla! Huxley, Hemingway, Puškin, Čechov a (hlavně) Virgina Woolf se povídek zhostili bravurně. Povídky mají šmrnc, a jak říká Crane, v pár stránkách dokáží obsáhnout podstatu a hloubku, kterou některé romány nevystihnou ani v X kapitolách. Příště bych si ji ale pořídila v češtině, místy jsem se namáhala s angličtinou

Thanks @Nastja! Waiting for you on my bookshelf :)

[Yomna Saber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Those are indeed great short stories. With very few exceptions, I would say that those stories are well-selected and they cover a wide range of different times and canons. It was a pleasure to read.

[☆ Lara the Ninth ☆ · Rating 2 out of 5]

"50 Great Short Stories"... yeah, more like "Three Great Short Stories And A Bunch Of Fillers To Make This Book 550 Pages"

[Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

“50 Great Short Stories,” first published in 1952 and edited by Milton Crane, has been a popular high school textbook in the U.S., judging by the number of printings the book has had. The weathered copy I read was the 46th printing in 1983 and used as a textbook for Skyline High School in Oakland.
Of the 50 short stories, I remember reading seven of them before.
The stories are by well-known writers such as Hemingway, Wharton, Poe, Steinbeck, Woolf, and Faulkner – and lesser-known writers such as John Collier, Robert M. Coates, and Wilbur Daniel Steele. I saw a few of my favorite short stories, including “The Chrysanthemums” by John Steinbeck, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, and “Ivy Day in the Committee Room” by James Joyce.
Three of the stories I hadn’t read before made an especially good impression on me.
“The Man Higher Up,” a story by O. Henry published in 1908, is a funny story about three con men with differing illegal skills who meet in a town in Middle America and try to con each other, in addition to hoodwinking the town’s residents. The dialogue is full of slang, puns, and malapropisms. The latter include: “He had hurt some of my professional self-adulation by casting his Persians upon commerce and trade.” Or the advice: “Eat, drink and be leary.”
“For Esme – With Love and Squalor” was written by the reclusive J.D. Salinger and published in The New Yorker in 1950. It’s a story with a first-person narrator that starts with an American soldier in England in 1944, preparing for D-Day, meeting a precocious English girl at a tearoom in town. The story is moving and true-to-life, and the dialogue is wonderful.
Aldous Huxley was best known for his essays and novels, including “Brave New World,” but he showed his skills as a short story writer in “The Gioconda Smile.” This 1921 short story has eye-opening description and dialogue. Here is a description of Miss Spencer using wonderful firearm metaphors: “Whatever she said was always said with intensity. She leaned forward, aimed, so to speak, like a gun, and fired her words. Bang! the charge in her soul was ignited, and the words whizzed forth at the narrow barrel of her mouth. She was a machine gun riddling her host with sympathy.”
A few of these short stories can be found in other anthologies, but I think the editor chose most of the stories because they were good, and a few great, but not well-known.

[Annabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

June 2018
Best to call this 50 Great and Not So Great Stories. Maugham, Wharton top my list, of course. To be sure, I know some others were topnotch too, and deserve a mention. But when you're reading 50 stories, by the time you've come to the thirtieth you're sure to have forgotten the first twenty-nine stories. I need to remember at least some of them...a rereading is in order.

March 2025 - A Rereading
It has been roughly seven years since I first read this, sans the reading glasses I now can't do without, at least not when it comes to paperbacks with what looks to be Times New Roman, size 9 font. Judging by the penciled check marks on the table of contents, it was read at random. I also see some single and double asterisks, and double check marks, indicating my partiality for certain stories, and a few marked with an X: a tale by Kipling (a writer I actually like), Joyce, Wolfe, and Woolf . But apart from four or five stories, likely recalled for their authorship and/or a recent rereading from another anthology, how is it possible to have completely forgotten all the rest? I have just reread the book, and I may as well be reading it for the first time. Even the ones bannered with those penciled asterisks/check marks!

So I don't forget, at least not completely, here are the stories I thought dear in 2018:

1 The Shot by Alexander Pushkin **
2 Putois by Anatone France **
3 The Lottery by Shirley Jackson * - remembered for its ubiquitousness in SF anthologies
4 Looking Back by Guy de Maupassant *
5 The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse by William Saroyan *
6 The Man Who Shot Snapping Turtles by Edmund Wilson *
7 The Giaconda Smile by Aldous Huxley **
8 The Catbird Seat by James Thurber *
9 The Schartz-Metterklume Method by H.H. Munro *
10 The Death of a Bachelor by Arthur Schnitzler *
11 The Tale by Joseph Conrad **
12 The Ghosts by Lord Dunsany *
13 A String of Beads by Somerset Maugham *
14 The Foreigner by Francis Steegmuller *

2025:
Add #15 to the list (how is it that this missed even the highlight of an asterisk in 2018?): The Other Two, Edith Wharton's neat little tale of the perfect wife. "Easy as an old shoe, a shoe that too many feet had worn, as her third husband has desinated her in moments of vacillating bemusement, annoyance, and admiration. Now here's a GREAT story!

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not going to try to give individual ratings or comments for all 50 stories, since that would be ridiculous. Instead, I'll just give my thoughts on the anthology as a whole. I found it to be a really enjoyable and fun read, even if it definitely has flaws. For one thing, the writers skew fairly white and male, though that's to be expected from an anthology from the 50s. I do wish this had had the sort of things I associate with more modern anthologies, like proper biographical notes and perhaps even an explanation for why Milton Crane chose these particular stories. There were some cases where I agreed with the choice of author, but was left curious as to why he chose a particular story of theirs. Of course, there were a number of stories I didn't much care for, and some of them dragged on rather too long, but there are plenty of gems here as well. I got to revisit a few old favorites, read stuff by authors I like that I haven't read before, and discover some new authors to check out. Well, new to me, as obviously most everyone in here is long dead by now. There was a nicely enjoyable variety, even if it largely stuck to literary fiction, and overall I had a pretty great time reading this. I expected to pick this up and put it down a lot, moving through it slowly, but instead I practically raced through, showing just how much fun I had. The editor has a second book devoted to American stories that I'll likely be picking up in the near future, in the hopes that it's just as good.

[Zeynep Dal · Rating 5 out of 5]

50 Great Short Stories

Zeynep Dal L9-1
50 Great Short Stories

This is an anthology from the best short fiction stories of the world, from the most famous writers.

If you’re interested in short stories this is a great book for you. Usually reading the same story for 200 pages bores me, but in this book, you’ll never get bored!

The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield was my favorite one. It shows different examples of sensitivity and insensitivity. The Sheridans gave their garden party but Laura had doubts about it. That's why she was the character I enjoyed most.

A scene from the garden party:
“Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood.
'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.”

Sometimes in life, this theme comes out to our way. Should we cancel an event if somebody close to us died nearly? Does cancelling the event show our respect to him/her? Or does it show our royalty and sensitivity?

The vocabulary is a little bit hard but I think you'll understand the story.

I think the design might have been different. The font is a little bit small and hard to read.

I recommend you to read it because this book is a great opportunity for you to read the best short stories ever written.

[Ivety · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology is a very mixed bag including plenty of monotonous tales. When you consider that this was published in the 50s, perhaps the choice of stories makes more sense (male, white, conservative, anglo-centric perspectives). I am sure I also lacked the context to understand some of them. Still, it seems to me that Crane was looking more at the fame of the author rather than quality of the story - there are many of the Big Names of Literature, but if you're looking for crazy twists you will not find them here... most are quite dull (check out Roald Dahl, master of the short story, instead) I cannot recommend reading this anthology in one go but maybe pick this one up for reading out loud or bedtime stories once in a while.

Some favourites include:
-The Standard of Living by Dorothy Parker
-The Other Side of the Hedge by E.M. Forster
-A.V. Laider by Max Beerbohm
-The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe
-The Giaconda Smile by Aldous Huxley (if you want to see how an absolute psychopath thinks)
-The Curfew Tolls by Stephen Vincent Benet
-The Man Who Could Work Miracles by H.G. Wells
-The Chaser by John Collier

Most others left me quite indifferent.

[Svenja · Rating 1 out of 5]

One star is probably a bit too harsh but I have this book on my bookshelf since I bought it in 2017 and when I first started reading it then I was shocked because it didn’t meet my expectations at all. I expected short stories filled with suspense and drama that I would fly through. That’s not what this book is for me at all. I stopped reading after about three stories in and always felt bad about not finishing it. That’s why a few months back I decided since I’m in a pretty good reading rhythm right now, to finally finish this book.
My goal (to at least motivate me a bit) was to finish 2-3 stories after a finished other book. And that’s how I got through this one.

I’m outing myself as an uncultured individual here but I didn’t enjoy most of the short stories. I in fact noted down when I enjoyed a story and there were exactly 7 stories I found entertaining. From 50…which means I enjoyed about 14% of the book which makes my 1/5 rating actually kinda generous…;-)

It’s okay if that makes me ‚too dumb to GET the other stories‘, I’m just being honest here…and I’m just super glad I passed this challenge for myself.