Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Part 2 of Important Short Stories of the 20th Century

Thanks to my readers for calling my attention to some omissions in my posting of important stories of the first 50 years of the 20th century.  Just overrsight on my part. Here's what I left out:

O. Henry         "The Cop and the Anthem" 1906      
                        "The Furnished Room"
                        "The Gift of the Magi"
Saki                 "The Lumber Room" 1914
                        "The Open Window"
                        "The Schartz-Metterklume Method"
                        "Sredni Vashtar"
William Sansom          "Through the Quinquina Glass"
                                    "The Vertical Ladder"1946
James Thurber "The Catbird Seat" 1939
                        "The Greatest Man in the World"
                        "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
                        "The Unicorn in the Garden"

One of my readers pointed out that two entries—Dubliners and Winesburg, Ohio--were not individual short stories.  I listed them this way because practically all the stories in Dubliners have been widely anthologized and analyzed and because Winesburg is more important as a series of linked-stories than it is for individual stories.

This list of stories between 1950 and 2000 is somewhat more problematical than the list of stories between 1900 and 1950, for they have not been around long enough to settle themselves into a tradition based on being anthologized and analyzed.  Once again, I urge readers to let me knowwhat I have left out or should have included.

1950-1960
Achebe, Chinua          "Dead Man's Path" 1952
Agee, James                "Mother's Tale" 1952
Aichinger, Ilse             "Bound Man" 1952
Baldwin, James           "Come Out of the Wilderness" 1958
"Sonny's Blues" 1958
Bellow, Saul               "Father to Be" 1955
"Leaving the Yellow House" 1958
Berriault, Gina                        "Stone Boy" 1957
Boll, Heinrich              "Murke's Collected Silences" 1958
"Laugher" 1955
"Across the Bridge" 1950
"Christmas Every Day" 1951
Brodkey, Harold         "First Love" 1957
Buzzati, Dino              "Seven Floors" 1958
Calisher, Hortense       "In Greenwich, There are Many" 1951
Camus, Albert             "The Guest" 1957
Cheever, John             "Country Husband" 1953
Cortazar, Julio             "Axolotl" 1956
                                    "Blow-up"
           

Dinesen,  Isak             "Babette's Feast" 1950
"Blank Page" 1957
"Cardinal's First Tale" 1957
Elliott,                         George            "Among the Dangs" 1958
Gold,   Hebert             "Susanna at the Beach" 1954
"Heart of the Artichoke" 1951
Gordimer, Nadine       "The Defeated" 1952
Grau,   Shirley Anne   "Black Prince" 1952
Hall, Lawrence Sargent "The Ledge" 1958
Hildsheimer,Wolfgang"World Ends" 1952
Keyes, Daniel              "Flowers for Algernon" 1959
Landolfi, Tommaso     "Gogol's Wife" 1953
Lavin, Mary                "Great Wave" 1959
Lispector, Calirce        "Imitation of the Rose" 1955
Mailer, Norman           "Time of Her Time" 1959
Malamud, Bernard      "Magic Barrel" 1953
"Angel Levine" 1955
"Take Pity" 1956
"Last Mohican" 1958
Mishima, Yukio          "Swaddling Clothes" 1953
Nabokov, Vladimir     "Vane Sisters" 1959
O'Connor, Flannery    "Good Man is Hard to Find" 1952
"Life you Save May Be Your Own" 1953
"The River" 1953
"Displace Person" 1953
"Artificial Nigger" 1955
"Good Country People" 1955
"Greenleaf" 19546
O'Connor, Frank         "Man of the World" 1957
O'Faolain, Sean           "Lovers of the Lake"
Paley, Grace               "The Loudest Voice" 1959
"Used-Boy Raisers" 1959
Pavese, Cesare                        "Suicides" 1953
Purdy, James               "Don't Call Me By My Right Name" 1956
"Color of Darkness" 1957
"Why Can't They Tell You Why" 1957
Rooney, Frank                        "Cyclist's Raid" 1951
Roth, Philip                 "Conversion of the Jews" 1958
"Defender of the Faith" 1959

Rulfo, Juan                 "Because We Are So Poor" 1942
"Tell Them Not to Kill Me" 1953
"Talpa" 1953
Salinger, J.D.               "For Esme, with Love and Squalor" 1950
Sillitoe, Alan               "Loneliness of Long Distance Runner" 1959
Stafford, Jean             "A Country Love Story" 1950
"In the Zoo" 1953
Svevo, Italo                 "This Indolence of Mine" 1957
Taylor, Peter                "What You Hear from Em?" 1951
                        "Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time" 1958
Tellez, Hernando         "Just Lather, That's All" 1950
Welty, Eudora             "No Place for You, My Love"  1952
Olsen, Tillie                 "I Stand Here Ironing" 1956
Williams, Tennessee    "Three Players of a  Summer's Game" 1952

1960-1970
Baldwin, James           "This Morning, this Evening, So Soon" 1960
Baraka, Amira             "Screamers" 1967
Barth, John                 "Night Sea Journey" 1966
"Lost in the Funhouse" 1967
"Life Story" 1968
Barthelme, Donald    "Shower of Gold" 1961
"Margins" 1964
"Balloon" 1966           
"Indian Uprising" 1968
Blattner, H.W.              "Sound of a Drunker Drummer" 1961
Butor, Michel              "Welcome to Utah" 1962
Buzzati, Dino              "Falling Girl" 1965
Cheever, John             "Brigadier and the Gold Widow" 1964
"Swimmer" 1964
Colter, Cyrus               "Beach Umbrella" 1962
Coover, Robert           "Babysitter" 1969
"Brother" 1969
Cortazar, Julio             "Island at Noon" 1965
"Axotol" 1964
Eastlake, William        "Long Day's Dying" 1964
Elkin,   Stanley             "Poetics for Bullies" 1965
                                    "I Look Out for Ed Wolfe" 1961
Fort, Keith                  "Coal Shoveller" 1969
Fuentes, Carlos           "Aura" 1962
Gaines, Ernest             "Just Like a Tree" 1963
"Sky is Gray" 1963
Gallant, Mavis             "Ice Wagon Going Down the Street" 1963
Gass, William H.         "Order of Insects" 1961
"In the Heart of the Heart of" 1967
Hughes, Ted                "Snow" 1960
Larner, Jeremy            "Oh the Wonder" 1965
Lavin, Mary                "Happiness" 1969
Lessing, Doris             "Homage for Babel" 1961
"To Room Nineteen" 1963
"Woman on the Roof" 1963
Lind, Jakov                 "Journey Through the Night" 1961
Malamud, Bernard                  "Jewbird" 1963
"Idiot's First" 1961
Marquez,Gabriel Garcia "Old Man with Enormous Wings" 1968
"Handsomest Drowned Man" 1968
Michaels, Leonard      "City Boy" 1969
Mishima, Yukio          "Patriotism" 1961
O'Connor, Frank         "My Oedipus Complex"
O'Connor, Flannery    "Everything That Rises" 1961
"Revelation" 1964
Oates, Joyce Carol      "Upon the Sweeping Flood" 1963
"Where Are You Going? 1966
"How I Contemplated the World" 1969
Olsen, Tillie                 "Tell Me a Riddle" 1961
Paley, Grace               "Faith in a Tree" 1967
Paredes, Americo        "Hammon and The Beans" 1963
Plath,   Sylvia              "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams"
Price,   Reynolds         "Warrior Princess Ozimba" 1962
Purdy, James               "Daddy Wolf" 1961
Robbe-Grillet,            "Secret Room" 1961
Rogin, Gilbert             "Judging Keller" 1964
Rosa, Joao Guimaraes "Third Bank of the River" 1961
Silko, Lellie Marmon  "Man to Send Rain Clouds" 1969
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr "Matryona's House" 1963
Spark, Muriel              "Black Madonna" 1966
Taylor, Peter                "Miss Lenora When Last Seen" 1960


"Reservations:  A Love Story" 1961
Updike, John               "A&P" 1961
"Pigeon Feathers" 1961
"Lifeguard" 1962
Walker, Alice              "To Hell with Dying" 1967

1970-1980
Adams, Alice              "Roses, Rhododendron" 1975
"Truth or Consequences"
Atwood, Margaret      "Rape Fantasies" 1974
"Man From Mars" 1975
"Sin Eater" 1977
Bambara, Toni Cade   "Gorilla, My Love" 1971
"Raymond's Run" 1971
"The Lesson" 1972
"My Man Bovanne" 1972
Holst, Spencer             "Language of Cats" 1971
Beattie, Ann                "Shifting" 1977
"Burning House" 1978
"A Vintage Thunderbird" 1977
"Greenwich Time" 1979
Carver, Raymond        "Neighbors" 1971
                                    "Will You Please Be Quiet, Please" 1976
"So Much Water Close to Home " 1977
Dubus, Andre               "Fat Girl" 1975
Gallant , Mavis            "Speck's Idea" 1979
Gardner, John             "Redemption" 1977
Godwin, Gail              "Dream Children" 1971
"Sorrowful Woman" 1971
Hannah, Barry             "Testimony of Pilot" 1974
"Water Liars"
Helprin, Mark              "Schreuderspitze" 1977
Le Guin, Ursula          "Ones Who Walk Away" 1973
Madden, David           "No Trace" 1970
Munro,Alice               "How I Met My Husband" 1974
"Beggar Maid" 1975
"Royal Beatings" 1975
"Wild Swans" 1978
O'Brien, Tim               "Going After Cacciato" 1976
O'Faolian, Sean           "Faithless Wife"
Paley, Grace               "Conversation with Father" 1971
"Long Distance Runner" 1974
Phillips, Jayne Ann     "Home" 1978
"Black Tickets" 1978
"Lechery" 1979
Price, Reynolds           "Truth and Lies" 1970
Robison, Mary            "Pretty Ice" 1976
Silko, Leslie Marmon  "Yellow Woman" 1974
Taylor, Peter                "Old Forest" 1979
Walker, Alice              "Everyday Use" 1973
Williams Joy                "Train" 1972



1980-1990
Abbott, Lee K.            "The Final Proof of Fate and Circumstances" 1983
Apple, Max                 "Bridging" 1984
"Oranging of America" 1976
Banks, Russell             "Sarah Cole:  Type of Love Story" 1984
Barthelme, Donald      "Chroma" 1987
Bass, Rick                   "The Watch" 1989
Bausch,                       "Old West" 1989
"All the Way in Flagstaff, Arizona, 1987
"Fireman's Wife" 1989
Busch, Frederick         "Ralph The Duck" 1988
Baxter, Charles           "Gryphon 1985
Beattie, Ann                "Jacklighting" 1982
"Janus" 1985
Bell, Madison Smartt  "Naked Lady" 1983
"Finding Natasha" 1989
Bloom, Amy               "Silver Water" 1991
Bourjaily, Vance         "Amish Farmer" 1980
Boyle,  T.C.                 "Greasy Lake" 1981
"Hector Quisadilla" 1984
Canin,  Ethan              "Emperor of the Air" 1984
"Star Food" 1986
Carter, Angela             "Black Venus" 1980
"Tis Pity She's a Whore" 1988
Carver, Raymond        "Cathedral" 1981
"Errand" 1986
Conroy, Frank             "Midair" 1985
Doer, Harriet               "Edie:  A Life" 1988
Dubus, Andre             "A Father's Story" 1983
Dybek, Stuart              "Bijou" 1985
"Chopin in Winter"
Erdrich, Louise           "Saint Marie" 1984
"Fleur"
"The Bingo Van"
Faust,  Irving              "Year of the Hot Jock" 1985
Ford, Richard              "Rock Springs" 1987
"Communist" 1985
Gaitskill, Mary           " A Romantic Weekend" 1988
Gallant , Mavis            "Lena" 1983
Gilchrist, Ellen            "Victory Over Japan" 1984
Hempel, Amy             "Going" 1985
"Al Jolson" 1985
"Today Will be a Quiet Day" 1985
Johnson, Denis            "Car Crash While Hitchhiking" 1989
Kaplan, David Michael "Doe Season" 1985
Leavitt, David             "Territory" 1982
Mason, Bobbie Ann    "Shiloh" 1980
"Residents and Transients" 1982
"Big Bertha Stories"
"Graveyard Day"
"The Retreat"
Miller, Sue                   "Inventing the Abbotts" 1987
Millhauser, Steven      "Eisenheim, the Illusionist" 1989
Minot, Susan               "Lust" 1984
Mukherjee, Bharati     "Management of Grief" 1988
"Wife's Story" 1988
"The Tenant" 1986
Ozick, Cynthia           "The Shawl" 1980
Robison, Mary            "Coach" 1981
"Amateurs Guide to the Night" 1983
Simpson, Mona           "Lawns" 1985
Sontag, Susan             "Way We Live Now" 1986
Stone, Robert              "Helping" 1987
Swift   Graham           "Learning to Swim" 1982
Tan, Amy                    "Two Kinds" 1989
Tilghman, Christopher"In a Father's Place" 1989
Trevor, William           "Beyond the Pale" 1981
Updike, John               "Afterlife" 1986
"A Sandstone Farmhouse" 1990
Wideman, John Edgar"Damballah" 1981
"Daddy Garbage" 1991
Williams, Joy               "The Skater" 1984
"Health" 1985
"The Wedding"
Wolff, Tobias              "In the Garden of North American" 1980
"Rich Brother" 1985
"The Liar"

1990--2000
Allen, Paula Gunn       "Deer Woman" 1991
Barnes , Julian             "Dragons" 1996
Barrett, Andrea           "Behavior of the Hawkweeds" 1994
Bausch, Richard          "The Fireman's Wife" 1990
Boyd, William             "Dream Lover" 1993
Brown, Larry              "Big Bad Love" 1990
"Facing the Music"
Butler, Robert Olen    "A Good Scent from a Strange Mt." 1992
Byatt, A.S.                  "Medusa's Ankles" 1990
Carey, Peter                "The Last Days of a Famous Mime" 1995
Chang, Lan Samantha "Pippa's Story 1993
"The Eve of the Spirit Festival" 1995
Cisneros, Susan           "One Holy Night" 1991
"House on Mango Street" 1991
Dixon, Stephen           "Man, Woman, and Boy" 1992
Dubus, Andre             "Dancing After Hours" 1996
Dybek, Stuart              "We Didn't" 1993
Gaitskill, Mary            "Girl on the Plane" 1992
Gordon, Mary             "City Life" 1996
Gilchrist, Ellen            "The Stucco House" 1994
Hospital, Janette Turner"Unperformed Experiments Have No Results" 1994
Houston, Pam             "Cowboys Are My Weakness" 1992
Johnson, Denis            "Emergency" 1991
Johnson, Charles         "Exchange Value"
Jones, Thom                "A White Horse" 1993
"Pugilist at Rest" 1991
"Cold Snap" 1993
Jones   Edward           "Lost in the City" 1992
Millhauser, Steven      "The Barnum Museum" 1990
"Knife Thrower" 1998
Moore, Lorrie              "People Like That Are the Only People Here" 1997
Munro, Alice               "Love of a Good Woman" 1998
O'Brien, Tim               "The Things They Carried" 1990
Offutt, Chris                "Aunt Granny Lilith" 1990
"Melungeons" 1993

Rushdie, Salmon         "Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies" 1994

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've downloaded one from each of your lists as most of the short stories I've read are from the last two decades. But I am curious how many of these authors' stories are known mostly by association with the author's novels. A cursory glance tells me quite a few. Not to create work for you but I'd love to see a list of highly regarded stories which have stood the test of time by authors primarily known for short stories.

I so appreciate your blog!

Anonymous said...

"Crazy Life" by Lou Mathews (Pushcart Prize 1990) is a great story