Favorite "Classic" Short Stories?

BeluvdLily · Feb 1, 2010

Okay, so I'm finally back in school at 43 and I'm taking English 113. We're reading short stories and I'm just enthralled with the wit and meaning of them! Who knew? lol.

I've always written but more with an eye to articles or novels. I have had stories published in True Story, True Love and True Romance but I have not ever really just tried writing a short story until the other day. I started, I finished it and I don't think it was half bad. Plus it was fun.

At any rate, I just love reading these stories and wonder what are some of your favorites? So far my favorite would have to be "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. I also enjoyed "A & P" by John Updike, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan and "The Disappearance" by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. While I'm not sure how much I liked "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, it certainly made an impression!

What are some of your favorites?

Shadow_Ferret · Feb 1, 2010

The Open Window by Saki is one that sticks out in my mind. The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, too. The Ransom of Red Chief, by O. Henry. To Build a Fire by Jack London. Those I remember specifically, but I love so many by Edgar Allan Poe, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert E. Howard.

SirOtter · Feb 1, 2010

Good list, Shadow Ferret. Here are a few more I've enjoyed over the nearly half-century I've been reading:

"'Repent, Harlequin,' said the Tick-Tock Man" by Harlan Ellison
'The Human Chair' by Edogawa Rampo
'Specialty of the House' by Stanley Ellin
'The Children of Noah' by Richard Matheson
Anything by Cornell Woolrich

Poetic_Justice · Feb 1, 2010

I really enjoyed A Good Man's Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin and The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant. There are a lot more, but I can only think of these that I really enjoyed at the moment.

wittyusernamehere · Feb 1, 2010

The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman is a great short read and available for free online.

Poetic_Justice · Feb 1, 2010

wittyusernamehere said:
The Yellow Wallpaper by Gilman is a great short read and available for free online.

That's the one I was missing. I love that story too.

CatSlave · Feb 1, 2010

Click here to read:

A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell.

The Scip · Feb 2, 2010

The Yellow Wallpaper and The Tell-Tale Heart

XxDethmetalxX · Feb 2, 2010

The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and The Pendulum, and The Most Dangerous Game

Lost World · Feb 2, 2010

The Lottery immediately popped into mind. The Lady or the Tiger is one no one has mentioned that I remember from school; can't remember who wrote it. Can't stand modern Stephen King, but a lot of his early shorts in Night Shift were excellent, as well as Umney's Last Case in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, though most of the stories in that one were lame.

Literary shorts I liked were The Laughing Man by J. D. Salinger, and a really good one is The Last Good Country by Hemingway, a story never published during his lifetime. It can be found in The Nick Adams Stories. And then there's Conrad: The Brute and The Duel.

I also recently picked up a copy of Saturday Evening Post short stories anthology for the year 1950--a dollar at a library sale. Some great stuff; especially liked The Devil in the Desert by Paul Horgan and Charity Ward by Don Tracy. Truly a treasure trove from the golden age of the short story.

DeleyanLee · Feb 2, 2010

Gift of the Magi also comes to mind. I adore The Ransom of the Red Chief and just about anything else written by O. Henry.

Lost World · Feb 2, 2010

Speaking of The Lady or the Tiger, I found it for free:

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LadyTige.shtml

And the question remains....

Bubastes · Feb 2, 2010

People have already listed many of my favorite classics. I'll add An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce to the list. And anything by Jhumpa Lahiri, if modern classics count.

Shakesbear · Feb 2, 2010

Guy de Maupassant. http://www.online-literature.com/maupassant/

Somerset Maughan - most written before air travel was common - a look into another way of life.

stormie · Feb 2, 2010

SirOtter said:
Anything by Cornell Woolrich

Yes! I have a good friend who has published compilations of his lesser known short stories. He gave me one of his books and I enjoyed reading it.

And I also reread "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and "The Gift Of The Magi" by O.Henry

ETA: and as someone else said, Stephen King's early short stories were very good.

.

blacbird · Feb 2, 2010

Additions to the worthy titles already listed:

"Silent Snow, Secret Snow", Conrad Aiken
"The Rocking-Horse Winner", D.H. Lawrence
"Afterward", Edith Wharton
"The Dwarf", Ray Bradbury
"The Monkey's Paw", W.W. Jacobs
"The Touch of Nutmeg Makes It", John Collier
"The Country of the Blind", H.G. Wells
"Pantaloon in Black", William Faulkner
"The Open Window", Saki
"The Hoard of the Gibbelins", Lord Dunsany
"The Lagoon", Joseph Conrad
"The Wall", Jean-Paul Sartre
"The Black Monk", Anton Chekhov
"The Horla", Guy de Maupassant
"The Man Who Would Be King", Rudyard Kipling
"In the Walls of Eryx", H.P. Lovecraft

There will be a quiz on Friday.

caw

JulieHowe · Feb 2, 2010

BeluvdLily said:
Okay, so I'm finally back in school at 43 and I'm taking English 113. We're reading short stories and I'm just enthralled with the wit and meaning of them! Who knew? lol.

I've always written but more with an eye to articles or novels. I have had stories published in True Story, True Love and True Romance but I have not ever really just tried writing a short story until the other day. I started, I finished it and I don't think it was half bad. Plus it was fun.

At any rate, I just love reading these stories and wonder what are some of your favorites? So far my favorite would have to be "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. I also enjoyed "A & P" by John Updike, "Two Kinds" by Amy Tan and "The Disappearance" by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. While I'm not sure how much I liked "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, it certainly made an impression!

What are some of your favorites?

Amie

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street

I Stand Here Ironing (Tillie Olsen)

I wasn't all that fond of The Lottery. I can't remember why.

williemeikle · Feb 2, 2010

Casting the Runes - M R James
The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C Clarke
Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
A Scandal in Bohemia - Arthur Conan Doyle
The Bottle Imp - Robert Louis Stevenson

willietheshakes · Feb 2, 2010

The Dead, by James Joyce

SirOtter · Feb 3, 2010

blacbird said:
"The Hoard of the Gibbelins", Lord Dunsany

Best first line ever: The Gibbelins, as is well known, eat nothing less good than man.

More:

P.G. Wodehouse wrote quite a few excellent short stories in between all those Jeeves novels.
Anthing at all by Theodore Sturgeon
'A Voice in the Night' by William Hope Hodgson
'The Upper Berth' by F. Marion Crawford
'Men Without Bones' by Gerald Kersh
'The Birds' by Daphne du Maurier
'Ill Met in Lankhmar' by Fritz Leiber (best fantasy short story ever)
'Three Skeleton Key' by George Toudouze
'Leinengin Versus the Ants' by Carl Stephenson
'The Damned thing' by Ambrose Bierce
'The Mark of the Beast' by Rudyard Kipling
'The Nine Billion Names of God' by Arthur C. Clarke
'Of Missing Persons' by Jack Finney

Alchemenos Prausti · Feb 3, 2010

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" Salinger (RIP)
"The Dead" Joyce
"Neighbors" Chekhov
"Good Country People" O'Connor
"That Evening Sun" Faulkner
"Babylon Revisited" Fitzgerald
"The Cask of Amontillado" Poe
"The Open Boat" Crane
"Bartleby the Scrivener" Melville
"Roman Fever" Wharton
too many by Hemingway to list individually

Xelebes · Feb 4, 2010

"Flowers for Algernon" yes and the movie based off of it has a special place in my heart.

There's also a short story by Isaac Asimov that I read about a year ago that the title escapes me. It's the one where they build a computer to answer a question and the question eventually leads to building more complex machines until there is one that creates a big bang just to answer the question. I can't remember the title for the life of me.

Favorite "Classic" Short Stories?

Court Jester

Il Cavaliere Marino

Pondering affirmation

Pondering affirmation

Mah tale iz draggin.

...walks this way.

Antiquarian Extraordinare

He'll NEVER fit in!

Writing Anarchist

He'll NEVER fit in!

bananaed

knows a hawk from a handsaw

storm central

Spent the night with Jack Daniels

The force is strong in this one.

Gentleman. Scholar. Bastard.

Il Cavaliere Marino

Delerium ex Ennui