Propose some short stories one must read?

[springrain]

I hope It will be interesting.
Who like the novel "the picture of Dorian Gray"

[Tiresias]

"a nice day for bananafish and other stories" by j.d. salinger

the short fictions of raymond carver

"the quantity theory of insanity" by will self (perhaps more in the mould of a modern, if bizarre, oscar wilde)

more traditionally: "death in venice" (thomas mann) is among the greatest short stories (well, technically novella) ever written (i guess, of all of these, the one you "must read")

[Xamonas Chegwe]

These should enhance any list:

Adam, One Afternoon by Italo Calvino.
The Ebony Tower by John Fowles.
Any collection of O Henry.
East West by Salman Rushdie.

[PeterL]

Any and all stories by Poe, especially
Balloon-Hoax, The (1844)
Devil in the Belfry, The (1839)
Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences (1843)
Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The (1845)
Imp of the Perverse, The (1845)
Loss of Breath (1833 and 1840)
Man That Was Used Up, The (1839)
Mellonta Tauta (1848)
MS. Found in a Bottle (1833)
Murders in the Rue Morgue, The (1841)
Mystery of Marie Roget, The (1842-1843)
Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, The
Pit and the Pendulum, The (1842)
Premature Burial, The (1844)
Purloined Letter, The (1844)
System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The (1844)
Tale of the Ragged Mountains, A (1844)
Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaal, The (1835)
William Wilson (1839)

http://www.eapoe.org/

[alexanderpope]

I loved The Picture of Dorian Gray! I belive I'll be reading Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest for my literature class. One of my favorite stories ever is Bartleby, the Scriviner, which (surprise-surprise) can be found in its entirety @ www.bartleby.com.

[Anna Seis]

I agree with you all, and I add some of my favorites too:
Ligeia, Berenice, The man of the crowd -really love this one... ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir pas etre seul ) (Edgar Allan Poe)
Go down Moses, Portrait of Helmer, Was, Pantaloon in Black, A rose for Emily (William Faulkner)
Bartleby (Melville. I just finished it)
Deshoras, Un tal Lucas (Julio Cortázar)
White Nights, (Dostoievsky)
...and more, much more than this

[Anna Seis]

I loved The Picture of Dorian Gray! I belive I'll be reading Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest for my literature class. One of my favorite stories ever is Bartleby, the Scriviner, which (surprise-surprise) can be found in its entirety @ www.bartleby.com.

I was fighting with my memory to recover the complete title of Bartleby and there is someone who has writed it! I readed The importance of being Earnest, and cucumber sandwich is an enigma to my imagination. But I laughed a lot reading it.

[starrwriter]

One should read short stories for pleasure and elucidation, not because one "must."

These are some rather unique stories I enjoyed:

The Rocking Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence
An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce
Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes by J. D. Salinger
Impostor by Philip K. Dick
Among the Dangs by George P. Elliott
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoevsky

[springrain]

I loved The Picture of Dorian Gray! I belive I'll be reading Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest for my literature class. One of my favorite stories ever is Bartleby, the Scriviner, which (surprise-surprise) can be found in its entirety @ www.bartleby.com.

the Picture of Dorian Gray is easy to read.I don't think it will help for me to learn literature.Wilde is a gay.Ha ha.It is intersting.

[Schokokeks]

Aw, short stories are great!! :nod:
My favourite is Dr. Heidegger's Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar A. Poe gives an interesting insight into a madman's brain...
A Day's Wait by Ernest Hemingway is also very good, displays what fears can arise when doesn't know how to convert Celsius and Fahrenheit :)
I also like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce very much, which was already mentioned.

PS: oh, and a happy New Year to everyone ;)

[Pendragon]

To what has gone before, I'll add the short stories of O. Henry, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the immortal Mark Twain. The latter's "Cannibalism in the Cars", "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyberg", and "The Invalid's Tale" are priceless. For O. Henry try "The Ransom of Red Chief", "Roads of Destiny", "After Twenty Years", "The Last Leaf", and the Christmas tale "The Gift of the Magi." Stevenson's "The Body-Snatchers", "Thrawn Janet", and others are in the same vein as "Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

[IrishCanadian]

PeterL, you more or less name dall the Poe stories I have not read yet. But I want to add "The Black Cat" to that list .... and the "Fall of the House of Usher"
"Araby" and "The Dead" by Joyce.
I usually loath Margret Attwood, but her story "happy Endings" is pretty decent too.

[mtpspur]

The Lady or the Tiger --Frank Stockton I think---I never have my books/reference material in the room where the computer is and the also The Most Dangerous Game who authorship I can't recall if you offered me Batman #1 for the answer. But the stories themselves are unforgettable esp the "Tiger"---(my guess/opinion)--to those who've read the story you'll know what I'm referrring to.

[Chinaski]

Off top of me head - Graham Greene's 'The Destructors' - I think the vlume is '21 Stories' or similar title. Probably online. There has probably been a re-awakened interest in it due to appearance in 'Donny Darko'. D.H. Lawrences short stories are great. Will Self's are worth a read. As are Martin Amis'. Charles Bukowski's a re great.

[Mark F.]

A bit longer than the ones listed :

"The Old Man and the Sea" by Hemingway
"Notes From the Underground" by Dostoevski
"Metamorphosis" by Kafka

I read "The Pictire of Dorian Gray" a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, "The Importance of Being Earnest" is great as well.

[Jarndyce]

Some more current short story writers:

Tobias Wolff is maybe the best short writer going. He is simply fantastic.

I like the stories of Mark Slouka a lot, but he's only published the one collection that I know of, Lost Lake.

[Geoffrey]

All those stories contained within in Mikhail Bulgakov's 'Diaboliad and Other Stories' which includes: Diaboliad, The Fatal Eggs, A Teatise on Housing, Moonshine Lack, and The Crimson Island, among others.

They are all of a most entertaining nature!

[Idril]

Short stories always leave me somewhat frustrated, I want more, more details, more characters, more story so I don't tend to read a lot of short stories but there have been a couple that I've absolutely loved, Leaf by Niggle by J.R.R. Tolkien and Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol.


The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Did you know he uses the word 'ridiculous' 10 times on the first page alone? I don't remember much else about that story other than that so I looked it up in my little book diary thing, where I write down what I've read, when I read it and what I thought of it and besides that little piece of trivia about how many times the word 'ridiculous' is used, all I have written was "very spiritual". :rolleyes: That wasn't very helpful, I need to learn to be a little more detailed in my critique than that.

[lavendar1]

Don't sell some of the more contemporary short story writers short (no pun intended). How's about:

Annie Proulx - "The Half-Skinned Steer"
Carolyn Ferrell - "Proper Library"
Thom Jones - "I Want to Live!"

and a blast from the past -- Susan Glaspell - "A Jury of Her Peers" (I think there's a dramatic version of this, too).

I appreciate the fluidity of the short story form. And true, it does keep you asking for 'more,' but that's its charm!

[mtpspur]

Thanks to this website I've now been able to read Taras Bulba --(a guilty pleasure movie from the 60s I assure you. Still looking for Gogol's Diary of a Madman (which was televised over 30 years ago and it still gives me the sivers--a French actor I believe. Was still in high school so we're talking '69-69.

[SmokeBellew]

If anyone is interested in adventure type short stories, I can recommend a few by Jack London:

1. To Build A Fire
2. Love Of Life
3. The League Of Old Men
4. The Mexican
5. A Piece Of Steak
6. Courage of A Woman
7. Odyssey Of North
8. White Silence

PS: Some names may be slightly different, because I read them a long time ago and plus they were all in russian.
Good Luck!

[Jarndyce]

Thom Jones - "I Want to Live!"

I very much like Thom Jones. "My Son, Superman" is a very good story, as well. Basically everything from Pugilist at Rest is top-notch.

[Daniel A. C.]

I have to second the nomination of Bartleby, the Scriviner, above.

I also really like some of Franz Kafka's short stories, The Metamophosis and The Judgement being the best in my opinion.

Nathaniel Hawthorne has some great short stories: I liked The Birthmark and Young Goodman Brown the best of what I've read.

I think the Book of Jonah from the Bible classifies as a great short story, about a prophet who tries to run away from God, and begrudgingly has to save people he hates. If I'm not mistaken, it ends with a great joke!

[Unspar]

Why has only one person mentioned Ernest Hemingway? In Our Time is one of the best collections of short stories ever. Moderate praise be damned! "Indian Camp" floored me.

And one person mentioned Faulkner. He's done some great short stories, and my favorite (though I've never read it) is "The Bear," which is all one sentence long. Extreme.

And it seems no one mentioned Flannery O'Connor. I guess her stories are too disturbing for the faint of heart, but c'mon. I wish I could recommend any title other than "A Good Man is Hard to Find," but it's the only one I remember. I've read a bunch, though, and the majority is good.

[ShoutGrace]

Well I just now read "Indian Camp" Unspar and it was very moving.

I will echo "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce, and each of Jack London's short stories. "The Law of Life", "To Build a Fire" and "A Piece of Steak" were all very real and worth reading.

The only Flannery O'Connor short story that I've read has been "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" which I thought was very telling.

Some people have mentioned J.D. Salinger but I can't believe that no-one has mentioned "For Esme with Love and Squalor". This is my all time favorite short story! It is so stinking real and beautiful that the first time I read it I couldn't move afterwards, I just laid there. Also, "Down at the Dingy" evoked some very strong emotions from me.

Has anybody read "Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilmore Perkins (I think)? I thought that was most amazing. From what I remember the author chronicled a descent into madness over some short period of time, is that correct?

[Virgil]

You're right, Grace, "For Esme with Love and Squalor" is a great story.

No one has mentioned D.H. Lawrence stories. In the U.S. unfortuantely we don't read too many Lawrence short stories, but I hope they do in the U.K. He's one of the finest short story writers ever. Some noteworthy mentions from my memory:
"The Woman Who Rode Away"
"The Prussian Officer"
"The Horse Dealer's Daughter"
"The Princess"
"The Rocking Horse Winner"
"The Blind Man"
"Odor of the Chrysanthemums"

[chmpman]

Shoutgrace,
I think it's Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

[Cardinal.jpg]

There is always one short story which everytime I read sends a shiver down my spine, a story which shows so much insight into its topic that it is diffuclt to comprehend how its author could have written such a work without an intense first hand experience. The story of which I speak is Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Illych.
Even if you do not have the time or desire to investigate his major works or any of his other wonderful novellas/ short stories, reading this will definitely not let you feel that your efforts were misappropriated.

[chmpman]

Do short stories told by characters in a longer novel count? If so, the Grand Inquisitor from the Brothers Karamozov is wonderful. That's the only part I've read of the book, but it's on my summer reading list.

[optimisticnad]

Not sure if these are already up...I notice some good authors like Poe and O Henry.
I strongly recommend Raymond Carver, Hemmingway (no stories in particular) and Henry James, especially turn of the screw. Joyce's Dubliners?

[Isagel]

Some people have mentioned J.D. Salinger but I can't believe that no-one has mentioned "For Esme with Love and Squalor". This is my all time favorite short story! It is so stinking real and beautiful that the first time I read it I couldn't move afterwards, I just laid there.

Yes!

Now that Salinger and Kafka has been mentioned I have to mention Capote. I have only read it translated but I adore Music for chameleonts. There is so much warmth in this collection of stories, and some gossip on Hollywood stars of course. The short stories are like portraits of people, done with care and sympathy.

Science fiction writers are usually great at short stories. Ursula K le Guin "The compass rose" is one of my favorites, and The Illustrated man, by Ray Bradbury.

There is a short story by Strindberg, I am not really sure if it is translated. It should be called something like " Half a sheet of paper" In sweden it is a classic and a must read in schools.

[The Unnamable]

Someone has already mentioned The Destructors, which is always worth the short time it takes to read it. “All this hate and love ... it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things.”

Some others that come to mind are:

Frank O’Connor’s My Oedipus Complex;
Leslie Norris’s Snowdrops;
Doris Lessing’s Through The Tunnel;
Ernest Hemingway’s The End of Something.
The Lumber-Room by Saki
Odour of Chrysanthemums by DH Lawrence
The Machine Stops by EM Forster

I also liked The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl by Ray Bradbury.

[Cormeister37]

I've got awesome short stories for you:
"Where are You Going, Where Have You Been" -Joyce Carol Oates
"The School" -Donald Barthelme
"Gryphon" -Charles Baxter
"Two Gentle People" -Graham Greene
"Cold Fall" -Ivan Bunin

[RobinHood3000]

Each and every one of the stories of the May 06 Elimination contest.

[Genevieve428]

Hi I'm new. I saw 2 people mentioned Flannery O,Connor. She is my favorite short story author. I have her complete stories and I read at least one before bed every night. Some of my favorites are - Good Country People, Greenleaf, Revelation, Everything That Rises Must Converge, and The Geranium.

[blp]

|The House of the Famous Poet by Muriel Spark

The Double by Dostoyevsky

Blumfeld, an Elderly Batchelor by Kafka

The End by Samuel Beckett - along with the rest of First Love and other Novellas, but this is the one I like best.

[davoarid]

"For Esme with Love and Squalor," "The Laughing Man," and "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" from Salinger. (That was one of the strangest collections of short stories I've ever read; those three are among the best short stories I've ever read, but the remaining six are just pathetic.)
"The Last Answer" by Asimov. (This one is funny, because Asimov wrote a different short story called "The Last Question," which seemingly everyone BUT me loves.)
"Master and Man" by Tolstoy.
"The Lottery" by Jackson
"Harrison Bergeron" by Vonnegut
For longer works, I'd have:
"The Turn of the Screw" by James
"The Old Man and the Sea" by Hemingway
The two halves of "Franny and Zooey" by Salinger
"The Long Walk" by Stephen King (more like a novella)

[Lady19thC]

Lois the Witch, by Elizabeth Gaskell
Rappacinni's Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

[Eagleheart]

All the stories of Chehov-be sure to read them all...There is no better example of literature engaged in the spiritual development of man ...Maksim Gorky too...The Russian naturalistic school displays some of the best in the style of short stories...I can offer you some Bulgarian authors but no way to read them

[lavendar1]

"The Waters of Babylon" -- Stephen Vincent Benet

A quote: "The truth is a hard deer to hunt." Indeed.

[mono]

I would have to kindly agree with many people who already posted. Rather than suggesting stories (the list would extend beyond my attention span :p), I will suggest authors instead, in no special order, of course: O. Henry, Mark Twain, D.H. Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, Henry James, Flannery O'Connor, J.D. Salinger (especially his Nine Stories), Ernest Hemingway, Amy Tan, Franz Kafa, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, and Zora Neale Hurston.
Additionally, I would like to add Fyodor Dostoevksy, but have yet to read any of his short stories, focusing more on his novels. Nonetheless, finding his novels enthralling, to say the least, as he lists among some of my favorite authors, I have no doubt in the superiority of his short stories, too. ;)
Happy reading!

[Idril]

Additionally, I would like to add Fyodor Dostoevksy, but have yet to read any of his short stories, focusing more on his novels. Nonetheless, finding his novels enthralling, to say the least, as he lists among some of my favorite authors, I have no doubt in the superiority of his short stories, too. ;)
Happy reading!

He does have some amazing short stories, my favorites being The Gambler, The Eternal Husband, The Meek One and Poor Folk. House of the Dead is also a fascinating story influenced by Dostoevsky's time in a Siberian prison but I don't know if it's considered a short story or a novel. I would highly recommend any or all of those stories.

[Boris239]

Chekhov was already mentioned, but again his short stories are amazing. I would also recommend Bulgakov's "Heart of a dog"- it's something in between a short story and a novel. Andre Maurois's short stories are very interesting. Zweig's stories about the famous people are definitely worth reading.

[rabid reader]

"The Chamber"- C. R. Brown

[rocktheworld]

If youre looking for a really, really short read:
"The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde,
"The Train from Rhodesia" by Nadine Gordimer,
"The Gold-Legged Frog" by Khamsing Srinawk,
"The Red Ball" by Ismith Khan and
"The Winter Oak" by Yuri Nagibin.

All of these stories really are short, I mean a few pages. But although theyre really short they are all enjoyable.

[mingdamerciless]

well for really short stories, Hardy's collection of Life's little ironies are a lovely read