The College Short Story Reader

Odyssey Press: New York, 1948. — XX + 396 p.
Edited by Harry W. Hastings.The short story has been defined facetiously as a story that is short; it may be described more seriously as a story which aims at the maximum of effect with the minimum of means. The good writer has the talent to discover the latent narrative value in many a combination of people and places and events and clothe it in illusion. The good reader is one who not only enjoys the illusion the writer creates, but also discerns and enjoys the art with which it is produced.
Most of the stories in this collection were published between 1918 and 1948, about the span of one generation. It is worth noting how dominant in the stories of the present volume are resentment of injustice, probing scrutiny of the nature of evil, desire to be honest, admiration of courage and loyalty, compassion for the sorrowful and blighted, respect for the dignity and honor of mankind.William March: Sweet, Who Was the Armourer's Maid
Albert Maltz: Afternoon in the Jungle
Ring Lardner: Some Like Them Cold
Kay Boyle: The First Lover
Saki (H. H. Munro): Gabriel-Ernest
A. E. Coppard: Arabesque: The Mouse
Stella Benson: The Man Who Missed the Bus
John Steinbeck: The Leader of the People
Katherine Mansfield: The Doll's House
Anton Chekhov: The Darling
Sherwood Anderson: What Makes a Boy Afraid
Stephen Vincent Benet: The Story About the Anteater
Anatole France: Our Lady's Juggler
Heywood Broun: Frankincense and Myrrh
Lord Dunsany: The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise
Wilbur Daniel Steele: Blue Murder
Vincent Sheean: The Conqueror
Elick Moll: To Those Who Wait
Warren Beck: Boundary Line
Leane Zugsmith: Room in the World
Katharine Brush: Night Club
James Gould Cozzens: Total Stranger
Jerome Weidman: Thomas Hardy's Meat
William Saroyan: Knife-like, Flower-like, Like Nothing at All in the World
James Thurber: The Catbird Seat
F. Scott Fitzgerald: Babylon Revisited
Ruth Suckow: Four Generations
Dorothy Parker: The Sexes
John D. Swain: One Head Well Done
Eudora Welty: A Worn Path