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"A Simple Heart" by Gustave Flaubert is a great one.
Also, "Eliduc" by Marie de France if your interested in a twelfth century take on the short story. I kind of like looking at the progression of different literary styles over time. Both are originally written in French, although I only read translations.
I'm so surprised that no one has yet mentioned "The Dubliners", Joyce's anthology of short stories. It is brillient as a book in itself as well as its story's efficiant structures and human truths ect.. Every story in the Dubliners takes place in one small city (Dublin obvously) and moves upward in the maturity of the main characters from one story to the next chronologically. The incredible complexity of emotion in each small to large egos and situations could be considered existential. And yet, each story stands on its own so beautifully. (You'll have to excuse this ramble, I'm a fanatic when it comes to Irish lit.)
The following stories are also good:
The Corsican Bandit by Guy de Maupassant
The Babes in the Jungle by O Henry
"The village that voted the Earth was flat" by Kipling
"The Rock that changed things" by Ursula Le Guin
just to pick two at random (almost) from those masters of the form
I just popped in to add "Dubliners" and Guy de Maupassant (just about anything by him) to the list. And I was beaten to it on both counts. What are the chances of that...?
Irish & pras, I commend your taste.
I'm taking a course in which the first half is a pile of short stories ... so i thought i would save this post till we finished this unit .... but I'v been going through too much good stuff to hold back.
My favorites so far
The Fall of the House of Usher -Poe
Young Goodman Brown -Hawthorne
The Yellow Wallpaper -Gilman
The Birthmark -Hawthorne
and I'm currently taking a quick break from Kafka's Metamorphosis at the moment .. .and I don't know if i like it or not. But I stringly recommend the other ones!
I think it is William Faulkner........I think O.Henry is an excellent short story teller. Guy de Maupassant and Anton Chekhov are also great.........Quote:
Originally Posted by Shea
Hermit and Sixfinger by Pelevin
Oh, and we also like Bradbury's short stories.
Jorges Luis Borges, for me, is the quintessential short story writer of the 20th century. Stories of his ingrained in my memory are "Man on Pink Corner" and "The Library of Babel".
I posted once, but I was using my laptop, and it didn't post. I agree with most people here, adding in the short fiction of Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain. With O. Henry, along with those mentioned, I recomend "Roads of Destiny", "The Last Leaf", and "After Twenty Years." For Stevenson, along with "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", there's "The Bodysnatchers" and the terrifying "Thrawn Janet" as wild as any Poe story. For Twain, "Cannibalism in the Cars", "The Invalid's Story", and "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg" are a must! :D :nod:
Is Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" considered a short story?
Because if it is --it definitely belongs on this list.
-AFTER THE BALL (or AFTER THE DANCE) by Tolstoy
-Anything in the collection titled INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri
A TEMPORARY MATTER, the first short story in this collection has been known to
be available on the web.
-I know there must be more but I can't think of them now. I tend to like a good short story better than a novel. But I HATE a bad short story.
I think that short stories must be more difficult to write than novels. Even if you don't have a hard limit on length, you still don't have the freedom to take a lot of time to develop characters. You must be able to "draw" the character with a minimal number of "brush strokes". Can be very tough I would think, I've never tried to write one myself. Good luck.
"Origin and Castrophe" and "Lamb to the Slaughter" both by Roald Dahl are great short stories.
Bradbury is the master of the short story in my opinion. Another one worth mentioning is "Moonface" by Jack London.
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce is a good story. The subtle way the point of view shifts really enhances the tale. And I found myself wondering if whoever produced Gladiator back in 2000 was maybe influenced by the last paragraphs in the story -- Farquhar and Maximus seemed to view their last human moments similarly.
Lost in the Funhouse
by John Barth
It's completely different. It's a series of short stories that form a novel, but in a way no one had before. Go read it.