Great Short Stories of the Masters

by Charles Neider (Editor)

Forty-nine short stories, selected for their richness of detail, accurate depictions of human passion, and international scope, fill this collection. The authors include Americans such as Hemingway, Faulkner, Saul Bellow, and Flannery O'Connor, 19th and 20th century Western European giants such as Proust, Sartre, Flaubert, Kafka, Mann, Pirandello, Rilke, and Balzac, Russian icons Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, and Chekhov, and Asian writers Rabindranath Tagore and Lu Hsun. While many of the names are recognizable (though some, such as Bunin, Lagerlof, Nexo, and Svevo rank among the lesser-known), Neider has favored gems less familiar to the average reader.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics

576 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Charles Neider was an American writer, known for editing the Autobiography of Mark Twain and authoring literary impressions of Antarctica.

Reviews

[Annna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I swear every single story but maybe one was depressing as hell. Still good though.

[Keith Madsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent array of stories, with a great variety of styles. I rate it 5 stars, not because every story in the collection is great (some seem totally pointless, and some seem to be an attempt to show off how many adjectives the writer knows), but because the collection does a good job of showing variety of style, and the different ways a short story can be constructed. My favorites were "That Evening Sun Go Down" by William Faulkner (the story of a black maid which reminded me a little of THE HELP); "The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller" by Gustave Flaubert (reminiscent of a story told about St. Francis of Assisi and a leper);"A Tale of Olden Time" by Heinrich Heine (which seems to predict Hitler's Holocaust); "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway (one of the few writings of Hemingway I have actually liked, this is a fascinating study of a character facing death); "The History of Krakatuk" by E.T.A Hoffman (an intriguing medieval story with the feel of a fable);"Letter to a Hostage" by Antoine De Saint Exupery (a story that seems to foreshadow the writer's own death in World War II); "The Wall" by Jean-Paul Sartre (the existentialist writer's picture of a man facing execution, it is a thought-provoking look at death and deliverance); "The Hungry Stones" by Rabindranath Tagore (a mystical thriller, which reminded me a little of Edgar Allen Poe); "Solitude" by Miguel de Unamuno (a sensitive story about a woman whose name mirrors her lonely life); and "Everything that Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor (a story about the values of different generations, and the judgmentalism and pain those differences can cause.) I was surprised both by the stories I enjoyed from writers I had little previous contact with (Heine, Hoffman, Tagore and O'Connor) as well as by some stories by writers I have previously enjoyed, which in this case seemed flat (stories by Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson). In all, this was a very worthwhile read which helped me in my own developing short story writing.

[Will Abel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice to read some stories from a few authors I'd not read before. Sadly most of these stories are just dull.

[Whit Ewen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to so many luminaries of literature. This is a treasure.

[Hollerache · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a 2000s reprint of a literary short story collection originally published in 1950. Apparently, the original title was Great Short Stories: Fiction from the Masters of World Literature, though all but a few of the stories were from Eurussian and North American writers. Many of the included authors are (still) household names. The stories are mostly 19th-century, with some 18th and 20th. I counted only 4 stories published after the original edition's publication year, the last and latest published in 1961. That particular story - about desegregation-era attitudes - is as topical as the collection gets. Besides the addition of these newer stories, I'm not sure what has changed in the table of contents since 1950.

A lot of these stories are "psychological", sometimes with little to no action. As other reviews have mentioned, this collection is generally grim, and it doesn't end on a high note either. There's a lot of death and despair. Many internal monologues of unhealthy individuals. A Dog's Tale will be especially painful to many readers. If you're not comfortable with prolonged negativity and formal 19th-century writing. There are some more lighthearted stories, like Mr. Aristotle and The Duchess and the Jeweller but yeah, the other reviewers calling this collection depressing are right! It was a bit too heavy and literary for me.

My favorite story in the collection is The Heavenly Christmas Tree, which is so comically grim that I refuse to believe it was written earnestly. So I choose to interpret it as black humor, with the final emotional rug-pull giving away the joke.

[Jgknobler · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very large collection of short stories, originally published in 1950. I really didn't like any of them! I don't seem to have the patience for the language of older stories. I probably would have benefited by having a high school English teacher by my side.

[Elizabeth Mohr · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this for my book club. I have never liked short stories and this confirmed why. They were all so depressing. I gave up after reading A Dogs Tale by Mark Twain which involved the graphic murder of a puppy dog. Too upsetting for me. I didn’t even enjoy the Virginia Woolf one

[Alexios Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

A readable and enjoyable selection that includes some writers who have been more forgotten since this collection was assembled. Excellent way for me to read several authors I had not gotten to. The Sartre piece was the stand-out for me.

[Alec Slater · Rating 4 out of 5]

First short story anthology I’ve read, so many bangers.

The Legend of St Julian
The Outlaws
Generous Wine
A Father to Be
Everything That Rises Must Converge

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another Little Free Library choice:
I love short stories. I have the bad habit of reading through the night when I'm in the middle of a good book and short stories help prevent that.
To me, having restrictions allow the exercise of a contained creativity. The writer must give the reader the tale, the atmosphere, the characters all within a limited amount of time. To enjoy the story as well as this creative exercise is a pleasure.
They also offer a glimpse of a writer's style without having to commit to a full novel!
This selection slants to the heavy side of life but it was an good mix of more prominent writers and some slightly less well-known authors, as well as authors whose books I have read yet none of their short stories.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

*The Passover guest / Sholom Aleichem --
Passion in the desert / Honore de Balzac --4
*Evening in spring / Ivan Bunin --
Vanka / Anton Chekhov --2
True relation of the apparition of one Mrs. Veal / Daniel DeFoe --2
*Savannah-la-mar / Thomas de Quincey --
The Heavenly Christmas tree / Fyodor Dostoyevsky --3
That evening sun go down / William Faulkner --2
Legend of St. Julian the hospitaller / Gustave Flaubert --2
My mother / Andre Gide --
*The disabled soldier / Oliver Goldsmith --
The gray champion / Nathaniel Hawthorne --2
A tale of olden time / Heinrich Heine --
The snows of Kilimanjaro / Ernest Hemingway --2
The nutcracker / E.T.A. Hoffmann --3
The stout gentleman / Washington Irving --3
*The great good place / Henry James --
*Araby / James Joyce --
The country doctor / Franz Kafka --1
The beggar-woman of Locarno / Heinrich von Kleist --1
The outlaws / Selma Lagerlof --2
*Two blue birds / D.H. Lawrence --
Benediction / Lu Hsun --
The massacre of the innocents / M. Maeterlinck --
Weary hour / Thomas Mann --
The piazza / Herman Melville --1
*Birds of passage / M. Nexo --
A horse in the moon / Luigi Pirandello --2
The imp of the perverse / Edgar Allan Poe --2
*Flowering Judas / Katherine Anne Porter --
Filial sentiments of a parricide / Marcel Proust --
The undertaker / Alexander Pushkin --3
Twilight / W. Reymont --
Stranger / Rainer Maria Rilke--
Letter to a hostage / A. Exupery --
The wall / Jean-Paul Sartre --2
Mr. Aristotle / I. Silone --
Markheim / R Stevenson --1
*Generous wine / Italo Svevo --
*The hungry stones / Rabindranath Tagore --2
*The three hermits / Leo Tolstoy --
The district doctor / Ivan Turgenev --2
*A dog's tale / Mark Twain --
*Solitude / Miguel de Unamuno --
The duchess and the jeweller / Virginia Woolf --2
*A father-to-be / Saul Bellow --
Idiots first / Bernard Malamud --2
The Vane sisters / Vladimir Nabokov --1
Everything that rises must converge / Flannery O'Connor--3

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 really. A pretty inconsistent book for me. Although, it did get considerably better at around page 200. There are lots of classics in this anthology, a lot of well known stories and some lesser known ones, but it wasn't necessarily the most popular ones that took hold of me (Nabokov, Tolstoy, Sarte, etc.). Either way, I did find a good handful of new writers.

It just goes to show that out of 49 stories (I guess, set in stone classics) it was fairly easy to order a top ten:

01: A Dogs Tale - Twain
02: The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller - Flaubert
03: The Snows of Kilimanjaro - Hemingway
04: That Evening Sun Go Down - Faulkner
05: Birds of Passage - Nexo
06: Solitude - Unamuno
07: Idiots First - Malamud
08: Mr. Aristotle - Silone
09: A Passion in the Desert - Balzac
10: The Massacre of the Innocents - Maeterlinck

[Jenny T · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I'm glad to have been exposed here to world-renown authors such as Dostoyevsky, DH Lawrence, and James Joyce, for example, I wasn't particularly moved by this collection. Some pieces I found the most readable were "A Passion in the Desert" by Balzac, "Two Blue Birds" by Lawrence, "Birds of Passage" by Nexo, "The Heavenly Christmas Tree" by Dostoyevsky, and "That Evening Sun Go Down" by Faulkner. I'd even only rate the afformentioned stories a 5-6 out of 10.

Maybe the editor and I have different reading taste, or I just haven't read the stories enough to digest and appreciate them. I did enjoy the lyrical language that temporarily reprieved me of my husband's whining

I think Barnes and Nobles' commercial collection is more entertaining with its better selections. Still, it's good to be exposed to these stories just to say I tried.

[Shishir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent selection

[Gabiwi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even though I didn't read the whole book, there were some pretty good stories and other ones pretty boring. It was okay.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good stories, but many bizarre ones. A so-so collection.