The Most Anthologized Short Stories of All Time
Anthologies are strange beasts. They are sometimes ludicrous, often ugly, and almost uniformly tyrannical. They have stories sticking out in odd places; they have holes in their sides. Those that claim to represent the state of short fiction at any given time are typically lying, to whatever extent mute volumes of literature can lie. But we forgive them, because it’s nearly impossible to fit a nebulous state of literature, with all its complexities of form, subject, race, class, gender, and nepotism (oh the nepotism) into a portable object made of paper.
Yes, we forgive them, and we read them, because pretty much everyone who is a consumer of short stories (or who has taken literature classes) has in their time discovered at least one great story in at least one anthology. I myself first read my favorite short story of all time (call it the FSSOAT) in an anthology assigned in a college creative writing class. (That short story is “The School,” FYI. The anthology was You’ve Got to Read This.) And we have many chances to do this kind of discovery, because every few years, there seems to be a new big-deal short fiction anthology hitting the shelves. So perhaps it’s not unsurprising that I see plenty of short stories, albeit primarily classics, designated as “among the most anthologized short stories of all time.” Exclamation, exclamation! But recently, in the wake of “Lottery Day” and in the midst of our collective summer reading fugue-state, I wondered: which stories are actually most anthologized?
To figure it out, I looked at 20 short fiction anthologies published between 1983 and 2017 (you can see the full list of anthologies I surveyed at the bottom of the page). I only considered anthologies that were general interest—no thematic anthologies (My Mistress’s Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro, etc.) or generic anthologies (SF, Fantasy, Romance, War, etc.) were consulted. I also excluded the yearly Best American anthologies (but included the more exhaustive 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories and The Best American Short Stories of the Century) and any other temporal, prize or journal-based collections (i.e. O. Henry Prize Stories 2014, Esquire’s Big Book of Fiction). Anthologies collecting both “American” and “International” stories were included, but other geographical organizations were not. (This admittedly makes the list skew American, but this was fairly unavoidable.) I made no distinction between stories by the same author published under different names (i.e. stories published under “Samuel Clemens” are here listed in the “Mark Twain” section), and I only noted authors with at least two stories anthologized among the twenty. Of course there are more anthologies than these twenty (though I hope no high-profile ones) and in addition to nationality, the data is also skewed by publication dates (which also couldn’t be avoided), but I think the below still gives a good picture of the most-collected short stories of the past 30-odd years. Now, whether those are the most-read short stories of the past 30-odd years is another question entirely.
After collecting the data, I made lists of the most anthologized stories and the most anthologized authors, as well as the authors inspiring the least consensus (that is, authors with no single story repeated across the 20 books surveyed, but several different ones included), and the authors inspiring the most consensus (authors with only a single story represented in the surveyed books, albeit, in some cases, many times). It’s worth considering the data in all four contexts—for instance, as you’ll see below, Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is the most anthologized story by a relatively large margin, but for topping the heap in that regard, he’s closer to the middle of the list of most anthologized authors. That’s because although “The Things They Carried” appears in a full half of the books surveyed, he only has two others thrown in—whereas Raymond Carver, who tops the list for most anthologized author, has seven hits for “Cathedral,” two for “Are These Actual Miles?” and then six more stories divided between the books. But past that, I’ll let you explore for yourself. So without further ado:
The Most Anthologized Stories:
10 inclusions:
Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried”
8 inclusions:
James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”
Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl”
7 inclusions:
Raymond Carver, “Cathedral”
6 inclusions:
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
Joyce Carol Oates, “Where are you going, where have you been?”
5 inclusions:
Donald Barthelme, “The School”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery”
Bharati Mukherjee, “The Management of Grief”
4 inclusions:
John Cheever, “The Country Husband”
Richard Ford, “Communist”
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”
Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”
Denis Johnson, “Emergency”
Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”
Robert Stone, “Helping”
Susan Sontag, “The Way We Live Now”
*
The Most Anthologized Authors:
15 inclusions:
Raymond Carver
14 inclusions:
Joyce Carol Oates
John Updike
13 inclusions:
Flannery O’Connor
12 inclusions:
Richard Ford
Tim O’Brien
11 inclusions:
John Cheever
Tobias Wolff
10 inclusions:
Donald Barthelme
9 inclusions:
James Baldwin
Ann Beattie
William Faulkner
Ernest Hemingway
James Joyce
Jamaica Kincaid
Edgar Allan Poe
Eudora Welty
*
The Authors Inspiring the Least Consensus:
(the authors with the most unique stories—and zero repeated stories—across the 20 anthologies)
6 unique stories:
Sherman Alexie
Richard Bausch
5 unique stories:
Sherwood Anderson
Louise Erdrich
Jayne Anne Phillips
Joy Williams
4 unique stories:
Stanley Elkin
Henry James
Thom Jones
Yasunari Kawabata
Guy de Maupassant
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Mark Twain
Edith Wharton
John Edgar Wideman
3 unique stories:
E.L. Doctorow
Nathan Englander
Gish Jen
Charles Johnson
D.H. Lawrence
David Leavitt
William Maxwell
David Means
Steven Millhauser
Frank O’Connor
Dorothy Parker
Jean Stafford
Peter Taylor
David Foster Wallace
E.B. White
Virginia Woolf
*
One Hit Wonders:
(the authors with the most reprints of a single story across the 20 anthologies, with no other stories represented)
5 inclusions:
Bharati Mukherjee (“The Management of Grief”)
Shirley Jackson (“The Lottery”)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (“The Yellow Wallpaper”)
3 inclusions:
Andrea Barrett (“The Littoral Zone”)
Paul Bowles (“A Distant Episode”)
Ron Hansen (“Wickedness”)
ZZ Packer (“Brownies”)
*
The Full List:
Chinua Achebe, “The Sacrificial Egg” x 2
Chinua Achebe, “Dead Men’s Path”
Alice Adams, “Roses, Rhododendron” x 2
Conrad Aiken, “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” x 2
James Agee, “A Mother’s Tale” x 2
Sherman Alexie, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”
Sherman Alexie, “The Toughest Indian in the World”
Sherman Alexie, “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven”
Sherman Alexie, “Do You Know Where I Am?”
Sherman Alexie, “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”
Sherman Alexie, “Because My Father Always Said He Was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ at Woodstock.”
Dorothy Allison, “River of Names” x 2
Dorothy Allison, “Jason Who Will Be Famous”
Sherwood Anderson, “Want to Know Why”
Sherwood Anderson, “Brothers”
Sherwood Anderson, “Death in the Woods”
Sherwood Anderson, “The Strength of God”
Sherwood Anderson, “The Other Woman”
Margaret Atwood, “Death by Landscape”
Margaret Atwood, “Wilderness Tips”
Margaret Atwood, “Hair Jewellery”
Margaret Atwood, “Happy Endings” x 3
James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” x 8
James Baldwin, “Going to Meet the Man”
Toni Cade Bambara, “Gorilla, My Love” x 2
Toni Cade Bambara, “The Lesson” x 3
Russell Banks, “The Child Screams and Looks Back At You” x 2
Russell Banks, “My Mother’s Memoirs, My Father’s Lie, and Other True Stories”Russell Banks, “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story”
Russell Banks, “Lobster Night”
Andrea Barrett, “The Littoral Zone” x 3
John Barth, “Night-Sea Journey”
John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse”
Donald Barthelme, “The School” x 5
Donald Barthelme, “Me and Miss Mandible”
Donald Barthelme, “Cortés and Montezuma”
Donald Barthelme, “A City of Churches”
Donald Barthelme, “The Palace at 4 A.M.”
Donald Barthelme, “Views of My Father Weeping”
Rick Bass, “The Hermit’s Story” x 2
Rick Bass, “Field Events”
Richard Bausch, “All the way in Flagstaff, Arizona”
Richard Bausch, “Letter to the Lady of the House”
Richard Bausch, “Aren’t You Happy for Me?”
Richard Bausch, “The Fireman’s Wife”
Richard Bausch, “1-900”
Richard Bausch, “The Man Who Knew Belle Starr”
Charles Baxter, “The Disappeared” x 2
Charles Baxter, “Gryphon” x 2
Charles Baxter, “Harmony of the World”
Charles Baxter, “Poor Devil”
Ann Beattie, “Janus” x 3
Ann Beattie, “A Vintage Thunderbird”
Ann Beattie, “Snow”
Ann Beattie, “In Amalfi”
Ann Beattie, “Jacklighting”
Ann Beattie, “Weekend”
Ann Beattie, “Lavande”
Saul Bellow, “A Silver Dish”
Saul Bellow, “Looking for Mr. Green”
Aimee Bender, “The Girl in the Flammable Skirt”
Aimee Bender, “Off”
Pinckney Benedict, “Mercy” x 2
Gina Berriault, “The Bystander”
Gina Berriault, “The Birthday Party”
Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Ambrose Bierce, “The Damned Thing”
Carol Bly, “Talk of Heroes” x 2
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph” x 2
Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”Jorge Luis Borges, “Borges and I”
Paul Bowles, “A Distant Episode” x 3
T. Coraghessan Boyle, “Greasy Lake” x 2
T. Coraghessan Boyle, “Rara Avis”
T. Coraghessan Boyle, “Filthy With Things”
T. Coraghessan Boyle, “Caviar”
T. Coraghessan Boyle, “The Love of My Life”
T. Coraghessan Boyle, “Night of the Satellite”
Ray Bradbury, “The Veldt”
Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains”
Kate Braverman, “Tall tales from the Mekong Delta”
Kate Braverman, “Histories of the Undead”
Harold Brodkey, “Verona: A Young Woman Speaks” x 2
Harold Brodkey, “Ceil”
Robert Olen Butler, “Mr. Green”
Robert Olen Butler, “Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot”
Robert Olen Butler, “Relic”
Robert M. Coates, “The Law”
Robert M. Coates, “The Darkness of the Night”
Mary Caponegro, “The Father’s Blessing”
Mary Caponegro, “The Star Café”
Truman Capote, “Miriam”
Truman Capote, “Children on Their Birthdays”
Angela Carter, “Reflections”
Angela Carter, “The Courtship of Mr. Lyon”
Raymond Carver, “Cathedral” x 7
Raymond Carver, “Are These Actual Miles?” x 2
Raymond Carver, “The Student’s Wife”
Raymond Carver, “Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?”Raymond Carver, “Fat”
Raymond Carver, “Fever”
Raymond Carver, “Where I’m Calling From”
Raymond Carver, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”
Willa Cather, “Paul’s Case” x 2
Willa Cather, “A Wagner Matinee”Willa Cather, “A Death in the Desert”
Willa Cather, “Double Birthday”
John Cheever, “The Country Husband” x 4
John Cheever, “The Enormous Radio” x 2
John Cheever, “The Death of Justina”
John Cheever, “Goodbye, My Brother”John Cheever, “The National Pastime”
John Cheever, “The Housebreaker of Shady Hill”
John Cheever, “The Swimmer”
Anton Chekhov, “An Upheaval” x 2
Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Toy Dog” x 2
Anton Chekhov, “Gusev”
Anton Chekhov, “Anna on the Neck”
Anton Chekhov, “Gooseberries”
Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour” x 2
Kate Chopin, “The Storm”
Sandra Cisneros, “Never Marry a Mexican” x 2
Sandra Cisneros, “The House on Mango Street”
Sandra Cisneros, “My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn”
Sandra Cisneros, “One Holy Night”
Sandra Cisneros, “The Monkey Garden”
John Collier, “The Chaser”
John Collier, “The Touch of Nutmeg Makes It”
Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness”
Joseph Conrad, “The Tale”
Robert Coover, “Going for a Beer”
Robert Coover, “Quenby and Ola, Swede and Carl”
Robert Coover, “The Babysitter”
Julio Cortázar, “Letter to a Young Woman in Paris”
Julio Cortázar, “Bestiary”
Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat” x 2
Stephen Crane, “The Blue Hotel”
Stephen Crane, “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”
Stephen Crane, “The Little Regiment”
Edwidge Danticat, “Night Women” x 2
Edwidge Danticat, “A Wall of Fire Rising”
Peter Ho Davies, “Relief”
Peter Ho Davies, “The Hull Case”
Lydia Davis, “The Old Dictionary”
Lydia Davis, “Men”
Lydia Davis, “The House Behind”
Lydia Davis, “Television”
Clarence Day, “Father Wakes up the Village”
Clarence Day, “Father is Firm with His Ailments”
Don DeLillo, “Hammer and Sickle”
Don DeLillo, “Videotape”
Junot Díaz, “Ysrael”
Junot Díaz, “Edison, New Jersey”
Junot Díaz, “Nilda”
Junot Díaz, “Aurora”
Isak Dinesen, “Sorrow-Acre”
Isak Dinesen, “The Cloak”
E.L. Doctorow, “The Hunter”
E.L. Doctorow, “Willi”
E.L. Doctorow, “A House on The Plains”
Anthony Doerr, “The Caretaker” x 2
Anthony Doerr, “The Deep”
Andre Dubus, “The Fat Girl” x 3
Andre Dubus, “The Intruder”
Andre Dubus, “A Father’s Story”
Stuart Dybek, “We Didn’t” x 2
Stuart Dybek, “Chopin in Winter”Stuart Dybek, “Death of the Right Fielder”
Stuart Dybek, “Pet Milk”
Deborah Eisenberg, “The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor” x 2
Deborah Eisenberg, “Someone to Talk To”
Deborah Eisenberg, “Some Other, Better Otto”Deborah Eisenberg, “Twilight of the Superheroes”
Stanley Elkin, “The Conventional Wisdom”
Stanley Elkin, “I Look Out for Ed Wolfe”
Stanley Elkin, “A Poetics for Bullies”
Stanley Elkin, “Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers”
Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal” x 3
Ralph Ellison, “King of the Bingo Game”
Nathan Englander, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank”Nathan Englander, “The Twenty-seventh Man”Nathan Englander, “In This Way We Are Wise.”
Louise Erdrich, “Matchimanito”
Louise Erdrich, “Fleur”
Louise Erdrich, “Disaster stamps of Pluto”
Louise Erdrich, “Saint Marie”
Louise Erdrich, “The Red Convertible”
William Faulkner, “That Evening Sun (Go Down)” x 3
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily” x 2
William Faulkner, “Barn Burning”William Faulkner, “That Will Be Fine”William Faulkner, “The Old People”
William Faulkner, “Dry September”
Carolyn Ferrell, “Proper Library” x 2
F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Babylon Revisited” x 2
F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Crazy Sunday”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, “An Alcoholic Case”
Richard Ford, “Communist” x 4
Richard Ford, “Rock Springs” x 3
Richard Ford, “Privacy”
Richard Ford, “Great Falls”Richard Ford, “Optimists”
Richard Ford, “Under the Radar”
Richard Ford, “Reunion”
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “A New England Nun” x 2
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “Ols Woman Magoun”
John Gardner, “Redemption”
John Gardner, “Come on Back”
Mary Gaitskill, “The Girl on the Plane” x 3
Mary Gaitskill, “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” x 2
Mary Gaitskill, “A Romantic Weekend”Mary Gaitskill, “The Arms and Legs of the Lake”
Mavis Gallant, “The Ice Wagon Coming Down the Street”
Mavis Gallant, “The Chosen Husband”
William Gass, “Order of Insects”
William Gass, “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country”
William Gay, “The Paperhanger” x 2
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” x 5
Nadine Gordimer, “A Soldier’s Embrace”
Nadine Gordimer, “The Life of the Imagination”
Lauren Groff, “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners” x 2
Allan Gurganus, “Minor Heroism”
Allan Gurganus, “Nativity, Caucasian”
Lawrence Sargent Hall, “The Ledge” x 2
Barry Hannah, “Midnight and I’m Not Famous Yet” x 2
Barry Hannah, “Testimony of Pilot”
Barry Hannah, “Sick Soldier at Your Door”Barry Hannah, “Water Liars”
Ron Hansen, “Wickedness” x 3
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” x 4
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Minister’s Black Veil” x 2
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Birthmark”Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Wives of the Dead”
Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants” x 4
Ernest Hemingway, “My Old Man”
Ernest Hemingway, “The Three-Day Blow”
Ernest Hemingway, “A Man of the World”
Ernest Hemingway, “The Killers”
Ernest Hemingway, “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”
Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” x 2
Amy Hempel, “Today Will Be a Quiet Day”
Amy Hempel, “To those of you who missed your connecting flights out of O’Hare”
O. Henry, “The Man Higher Up”
O. Henry, “Masters of Arts”
Pam Houston, “How to Talk to a Hunter” x 2
Washington Irving, “The Adventure of the German Student”
Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle”
Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” x 5
Henry James, “The Real Thing”
Henry James, “Brooksmith”
Henry James, “The Two Faces”
Henry James, “The Middle Years”
Sarah Orne Jewett, “The Courting of Sister Wisby”
Sarah Orne Jewett, “A White Heron”
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, “The Interview”
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, “Passion”
Ha Jin, “Children as Enemies”
Ha Jin, “The Woman from New York”
Gish Jen, “Birthmates”
Gish Jen, “The Third Dumpster”
Gish Jen, “In the American Society”
Denis Johnson, “Emergency” x 4
Denis Johnson, “The Largesse of the Sea Maiden”
Denis Johnson, “Car Crash While Hitchhiking”
Charles Johnson, “Moving Pictures”
Charles Johnson, “Exchange Value”
Charles Johnson, “Menagerie: A Child’s Fable”
Edward P. Jones, “The First Day” x 2
Edward P. Jones, “Old Boys, Old Girls” x 2
Edward P. Jones, “A New Man”Edward P. Jones, “Marie”
Edward P. Jones, “Young Lions”
Thom Jones, “A White Horse”
Thom Jones, “I Want to Live!”
Thom Jones, “The Pugilist at Rest”
Thom Jones, “Cold Snap”
James Joyce, “Araby” x 4
James Joyce, “The Dead” x 3
James Joyce, “Ivy Day in the Committee Room”
James Joyce, “Eveline”
Franz Kafka, “A Hunger Artist” x 3
Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”Franz Kafka, “In the Penal Colony”
Yasunari Kawabata, “The White Horse”
Yasunari Kawabata, “One Arm”
Yasunari Kawabata, “The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket”
Yasunari Kawabata, “Immortality”
Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” x 8
Jamaica Kincaid, “Xuela”
Rudyard Kipling, “The Courting of Dinah Shadd”
Rudyard Kipling, “The Man Who Would be King”
John L’Heureux, “Departures”
John L’Heureux, “Brief Lives in California”
Jhumpa Lahiri, “Hell-Heaven” x 2
Jhumpa Lahiri, “The Third and Final Continent” x 2
Jhumpa Lahiri, “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”Jhumpa Lahiri, “A Temporary Matter”
Jhumpa Lahiri, “Once in a Lifetime”
Jhumpa Lahiri, “Interpreter of Maladies”
Ring Lardner, “The Golden Honeymoon” x 2
Ring Lardner, “Ex Parte”
Ring Lardner, “Haircut”Ring Lardner, “Old Folks’ Christmas”
D.H. Lawrence, “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter”
D.H. Lawrence, “The Rocking Horse Winner”
D.H. Lawrence, “The Prussian Officer”
Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” x 4
Ursula K. Le Guin, “Ile Forest”
David Leavitt, “Territory”
David Leavitt, “A Place I’ve Never Been”
David Leavitt, “Gravity”
Doris Lessing, “To Room Nineteen”
Doris Lessing, “The Habit of Loving”
Yiyun Li, “A Man Like Him” x 2
Kelly Link, “Valley of the Girls”
Kelly Link, “Stone Animals”
Sam Lipsyte, “I’m Slavering”
Sam Lipsyte, “This Appointment Occurs in the Past”
Jack London, “To Build a Fire”
Jack London, “In a Far Country”
Bernard Malamud, “The Jewbird” x 2
Bernard Malamud, “Angel Levine”
Bernard Malamud, “The Last Mohican”
Bernard Malamud, “The Magic Barrel”
Bernard Malamud, “My Son the Murderer”
Bernard Malamud, “The German Refugee”
Katherine Mansfield, “The Garden Party” x 3
Katherine Mansfield, “The Daughters of the Late Colonel”
Katherine Mansfield, “Miss Brill”
Katherine Mansfield, “The Doll’s House”
Gabriel García Márquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”
Gabriel García Márquez, “Eyes of a Blue Dog”
Bobbie Ann Mason, “Shiloh” x 3
Bobbie Ann Mason, “Wish”
Bobbie Ann Mason, “A New-Wave Format”
Guy de Maupassant, “Boule de Suif”
Guy de Maupassant, “An Adventure in Paris”
Guy de Maupassant, “Looking Back”
Guy de Maupassant, “The Necklace”
William Maxwell, “The Thistles in Sweden”
William Maxwell, “The Pilgrimage”
William Maxwell, “The French Scarecrow”
Carson McCullers, “The Jockey”
Carson McCullers, “Madam Zilensky and the King of Finland “
Ian McEwan, “Pornography”
Ian McEwan, “First Love, Last Rites”
Thomas McGuane, “Cowboy” x 2
James Alan McPherson, “Of Cabbages and Kings” x 2
James Alan McPherson, “Why I Like Country Music”
James Alan McPherson, “The Story of a Scar”
James Alan McPherson, “Gold Coast”
David Means, “The Secret Goldfish”
David Means, “Sault Ste. Marie”
David Means, “What They Did”
Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” x 4
Herman Melville, “The Fiddler”
Herman Melville, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”
Leonard Michaels, “Murderers” x 2
Leonard Michaels, “The Deal”
Leonard Michaels, “I Would Have Saved Them If I Could”
Steven Millhauser, “Behind the Blue Curtain”
Steven Millhauser, “The New Automaton Theater”
Steven Millhauser, “A Visit”
Lorrie Moore, “You’re Ugly, Too” x 2
Lorrie Moore, “Willing”
Lorrie Moore, “How to Become a Writer”Lorrie Moore, “Paper Losses”
Lorrie Moore, “People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk”
Lorrie Moore, “Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People.”
Mohammed Mrabet, “The Canebrake”
Mohammed Mrabet, “Doctor Safi”
Bharati Mukherjee, “The Management of Grief” x 5
Alice Munro, “Miles City, Montana” x 2
Alice Munro, “Royal Beatings”Alice Munro, “Labor Day Dinner”
Alice Munro, “Friend of My Youth”
Alice Munro, “Meneseteung”
Alice Munro, “The Turkey Season”
Vladimir Nabokov, “Spring in Fialta” x 2
Vladimir Nabokov, “Signs and Symbols”Vladimir Nabokov, “That in Aleppo Once…”
Antonya Nelson, “Female Trouble”
Antonya Nelson, “Stitches”
Joyce Carol Oates, “Where are you going, where have you been?” x 6
Joyce Carol Oates, “How I Contemplated the World…”
Joyce Carol Oates, “Convalescing”
Joyce Carol Oates, “By the River”
Joyce Carol Oates, “Mark of Satan”
Joyce Carol Oates, “The Tryst”
Joyce Carol Oates, “Heat”
Joyce Carol Oates, “The Translation”
Joyce Carol Oates, “Landfill”
Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried” x 10
Tim O’Brien, “How to Tell a True War Story”
Tim O’Brien, “On the Rainy River”
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” x 6
Flannery O’Connor, “Everything That Rises Must Converge” x 2
Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People”Flannery O’Connor, “The Artificial Nigger”
Flannery O’Connor, “A Late Encounter with the Enemy”
Flannery O’Connor, “Greenleaf”
Flannery O’Connor, “Revelation”
Frank O’Connor, “Guests of the Nation”
Frank O’Connor, “A Set of Variations on a Borrowed Theme”
Frank O’Connor, “The Man of the House”
Tillie Olsen, “I Stand Here Ironing” x 3
Tillie Olsen, “O Yes”
Amos Oz, “Where the Jackals Howl”
Amos Oz, “Nomad and Viper”
Cynthia Ozick, “The Shawl” x 3
Cynthia Ozick, “The Suitcase”
ZZ Packer, “Brownies” x 3
Grace Paley, “The Used-Boy Raisers” x 2
Grace Paley, “Wants” x 3
Grace Paley, “Friends”
Grace Paley, “The Contest”
Grace Paley, “An Interest in Life”
Dorothy Parker, “The Standard of Living”
Dorothy Parker, “Soldiers of the Republic”
Dorothy Parker, “Here We Are”
Jayne Anne Phillips, “Home”
Jayne Anne Phillips, “El Paso”
Jayne Anne Phillips, “The Heavenly Animal”
Jayne Anne Phillips, “Souvenir”
Jayne Anne Phillips, “Satisfaction”
Luigi Pirandello, “War”
Luigi Pirandello, “Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza, her son-in-law”
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” x 2
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado” x 2
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Purloined Letter”
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death”
Edgar Allan Poe, “MS. Found in a Bottle”Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat”
Katherine Anne Porter, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” x 2
Katherine Anne Porter, “Flowering Judas”
Katherine Anne Porter, “The Cracked Looking-Glass”
Katherine Anne Porter, “Theft”
J.F. Powers, “Prince of Darkness”
J.F. Powers, “Death of a Favorite”
V.S. Pritchett, “The Saint” x 2
V.S. Pritchett, “The Fall”
Francine Prose, “Talking Dog”
Francine Prose, “Everyday Disorders”
Annie Proulx, “The Half-Skinned Steer” x 2
Annie Proulx, “What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?”
Annie Proulx, “The Mud Below”Annie Proulx, “People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water”
James Purdy, “Eventide”
James Purdy, “Don’t Call Me by My Right Name”
Mark Richard, “Gentleman’s Agreement”
Mark Richard, “Strays”
Philip Roth, “The Conversion of the Jews” x 3
Philip Roth, “Defender of the Faith x 3
James Salter, “Give”
James Salter, “Akhnilo”
William Saroyan, “The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse”
William Saroyan, “There was a Young Lady of Perth”
George Saunders, “Sea Oak” x 3
George Saunders, “Victory Lap”
George Saunders, “Home”
George Saunders, “The Semplica Girl Diaries”
George Saunders, “The Red Bow”
George Saunders, “My Flamboyant Grandson”
Christine Schutt, “You Drive”
Christine Schutt, “A Happy Rural Seat of Various View Lucinda’s Garden”
Akhil Sharma, “If You Sing Like That For Me”
Akhil Sharma, “Surrounded by Sleep”
Irwin Shaw, “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” x 2
Irwin Shaw, “Main Currents of American Thought”
Leslie Marmon Silko, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” x 2
Leslie Marmon Silko, “Tony’s Story”
Leslie Marmon Silko, “Storyteller”
Leslie Marmon Silko, “Yellow Woman”
Mona Simpson, “Lawns” x 2
Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Gimpel the Fool”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, “Henne Fire”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, “The Key”
Isaac Bashevis Singer, “The Spinoza of Market Street”
Susan Sontag, “The Way We Live Now” x 4
Susan Sontag, “Unguided Tour”
Jean Stafford, “In the Zoo”
Jean Stafford, “Children Are Bored on Sunday”
Jean Stafford, “The Interior Castle”
John Steinbeck, “The Chrysanthemums” x 2
John Steinbeck, “The Harness”
Robert Stone, “Helping” x 4
Robert Stone, “Under the Pitons”
Amy Tan, “Rules of the Game” x 3
Amy Tan, “Two Kinds” x 2
Peter Taylor, “A Spinster’s Tale”
Peter Taylor, “A Friend and Protector”
Peter Taylor, “The Old Forest”
James Thurber, “The Catbird Seat”
James Thurber, “Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife”
Leo Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilych”
Leo Tolstoy, “Master and Man”
Jean Toomer, “Blood-Burning Moon” x 2
Wells Tower, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned”
Wells Tower, “Raw Water”
William Trevor, “Events at Drimaghleen”
William Trevor, “Beyond the Pale”
Mark Twain, “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
Mark Twain, “The Invalid’s Story”
Mark Twain, “Cannibalism in the Cars”
Mark Twain, “Luck”
John Updike, “A&P” x 3
John Updike, “Separating” x 2
John Updike, “Brother Grasshopper”
John Updike, “Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, a Dying Cat, a Traded Car”
John Updike, “Pigeon Feathers”
John Updike, “The Lucid Eye in Silver Town”
John Updike, “The Christian Roommates”
John Updike, “The Persistence of Desire”
John Updike, “Gesturing”
John Updike, “The Brown Chest”
John Updike, “Here Come the Maples”
Luisa Valenzuela, “Who, Me a Bum?”
Luisa Valenzuela, “I’m Your Horse in the Night”
Stephanie Vaughn, “Dog Heaven”
Stephanie Vaughn, “Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog”
Helena María Viramontes, “The Moths” x 2
Helena María Viramontes, “The Cariboo Cafe”
Alice Walker, “Everyday Use” x 3
Alice Walker, “The Flowers”
Alice Walker, “Nineteen Fifty-Five”
Alice Walker, “To Hell With Dying”
David Foster Wallace, “Brief Interviews with Hideous Men”
David Foster Wallace, “Good People”
David Foster Wallace, “Incarnations of Burned Children”
Robert Penn Warren, “Blackberry Winter”
Robert Penn Warren, “Christmas Gift”
Eudora Welty, “Why I Live at the P.O.” x 2
Eudora Welty, “A Worn Path” x 2
Eudora Welty, “No Place for You, My Love” x 2
Eudora Welty, “The Whole World Knows”
Eudora Welty, “Where is the Voice Coming From?”
Eudora Welty, “The Hitch-Hikers”
Edith Wharton, “Xingu”
Edith Wharton, “The Other Two”
Edith Wharton, “The Dilettante”
Edith Wharton, “A Journey”
Edmund White, “Cinnamon Skin” x 2
Edmund White, “Give it up for Billy”
E.B. White, “The Door”
E.B. White, “The Hour of Letdown”
E.B. White, “The Second Tree from the Corner”
John Edgar Wideman, “Daddy Garbage”
John Edgar Wideman, “Doc’s Story”
John Edgar Wideman, “Who Invented the Jump Shot”
John Edgar Wideman, “Newborn Thrown in Trash and Dies”
Joy Williams, “Train”
Joy Williams, “The Country”
Joy Williams, “The Farm”
Joy Williams, “The Wedding”
Joy Williams, “Health”
William Carlos Williams, “The Use of Force” x 2
William Carlos Williams, “The Girl with a Pimply Face”
Tobias Wolff, “Bullet in the Brain” x 3
Tobias Wolff, “Hunters in the Snow” x 3
Tobias Wolff, “In the Garden of the North American Martyrs”Tobias Wolff, “Awaiting Orders”
Tobias Wolff, “The Night in Question”Tobias Wolff, “The Liar”
Tobias Wolff, “The Rich Brother”
Virginia Woolf, “Kew Gardens”
Virginia Woolf, “A Haunted House”
Virginia Woolf, “The Mark on the Wall”
Richard Wright, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man” x 2
Richard Wright, “Big Black Good Man”
Richard Wright, “Bright and Morning Star”
Hisaye Yamamoto, “Seventeen Syllables” x 2
*
Anthologies surveyed:
The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, ed. Tobias Wolff (1994); The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, ed. Ben Marcus (2004); The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, 8th edition, ed. Richard Bausch and R.V. Cassill (2015); You’ve Got to Read This, ed. Jim Shepard and Ron Hansen (1994); New American Stories, ed. Ben Marcus (2015); 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories, ed. Lorrie Moore and Heidi Pitlor (2015); The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories, ed. Daniel Halpern (2000); The Art of the Tale, ed. Daniel Halpern (1987); Fifty Great Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane (1983); Fifty Great American Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane (1984); American Short Story Masterpieces, ed. Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks (1989); The Oxford Book of American Short Stories, 2nd Edition, ed. Joyce Carol Oates (2012); The Best American Short Stories of the Century, ed. John Updike (1999); The World’s Greatest Short Stories, ed. James Daley (2006); The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction, ed. Lex Williford and Michael Martone (2007); The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction, ed. Joyce Carol Oates (2008); 40 Short Stories: a Portable Anthology, 5th edition, ed. Beverly Lawn (2017); The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction, 3rd Edition, ed. Sara Levine, Don LePan, and Marjorie Mather (2013); American Short Stories Since 1945, ed. John G. Parks (2001); The Contemporary American Short Story, ed. Bich Minh Nguyen and Porter Shreve (2003)
Originally published in Literary Hub.
