During her many years of teaching introduction to fiction courses, Ann Charters developed an acute sense of which stories work most effectively in the classroom. She also discovered that writers, not editors, have the most interesting and useful things to say about the making and the meaning of fiction. Accordingly, her choice of fiction in the first edition of her The Story and Its Writer was as notable for its student appeal as it was for its quality and range. And to complement these stories, she introduced a lasting innovation: an array of the writers' own commentaries on the craft and traditions of the short story. In subsequent editions her sense of what works was confirmed as the book evolved into the most comprehensive, diverse — and bestselling — introduction to fiction anthology. Instructors rely on Ann Charters' ability to assemble an authoritative and teachable anthology, and anticipate each edition's selection of new writers and stories.

ANN CHARTERS (Ph.D., Columbia University) is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut and has taught courses in the short story for over thirty years. A preeminent authority on the Beat writers, Charters has written a critically acclaimed biography of Jack Kerouac; compiled Beats & Company, a collection of her own photographs of Beat writers; and edited the best-selling Portable Beat Reader. Her recent books include The Kerouac Reader, Selected Letters of Jack Kerouac, 1957-1969, Beat Down to Your Soul, and The Portable Sixties Reader. Her other textbooks with Bedford/St. Martin's include The American Short Story and Its Writer, and Literature and Its Writers, co-edited with Samuel Charters.

   Introduction

    

PART ONE: STORIES

    

    Chinua Achebe, Civil Peace

    Sherman Alexie, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

    Woody Allen, The Kugelmass Episode

   *Isabelle Allende, An Act of Vengeance

    Sherwood Anderson, Death in the Woods

    Sherwood Anderson, Hands

    Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings

    James Baldwin, Sonny's Blues

    Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson

    Russell Banks, Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat

    John Barth, Lost in the Funhouse

   * Donald Barthelme, The Indian Uprising

   * Ann Beattie, Snow

   *Gina Berriault, The Overcoat

    Ambrose Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

   *Jorge Luis Borges, The Circular Ruins

    Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

   *T. Corraghesan Boyle, Greasy Lake

   *Ray Bradbury, August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains

    Albert Camus, The Guest

   *Raymond Carver, Cathedral

   *Raymond Carver, Errand

    Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

    Willa Cather, Paul's Case

    John Cheever, The Swimmer

    Anton Chekhov, The Darling [Garnett translation]

    Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Little Dog

    Kate Chopin, Désirée's Baby

    Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour

    Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

    Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

    Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

    Julio Cortázar, A Continuity of Parks

    Stephen Crane, The Open Boat

    Edwidge Danticat, Night Women

   *Junot Diaz, How to Date A Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie

   *Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter

    Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal

    Louise Erdrich, The Red Convertible

    William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily

    William Faulkner, That Evening Sun

    F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babylon Revisited

    Gustave Flaubert, A Simple Heart

   *Richard Ford, Under the Radar

    Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

    Nikolai Gogol, The Overcoat

   *Nadine Gordimer, Some Are Born to Sweet Delight

   *Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minister's Black Veil

    Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown

    Bessie Head, Woman from America

    Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants

   *Oscar Hijuelos, Lunch at the Biltmore

    Zora Neale Hurston, The Gilded Six-Bits

    Zora Neale Hurston, Spunk

    Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat

    Washington Irving, Rip Van Winkle

    Shirley Jackson, The Lottery

    Henry James, The Real Thing

    Gish Jen, Whose Irish?

    Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron

   *Ha Jin, Saboteur

   *Denis Johnson, Car Crash While Hitchhiking

    James Joyce, Araby

    James Joyce, The Dead

    Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist

    Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

    Jamaica Kincaid, Girl

   *Jhumpa Lahiri, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

    Mary Lavin, The Widow's Son

    D. H. Lawrence, Odour of Chrysanthemums

    D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking-Horse Winner

   *David Leavitt, Gravity

    Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

    Doris Lessing, Sunrise on the Veld

    Clarice Lispector, The Smallest Woman in the World

    Jack London, To Build a Fire

    Katherine Mansfield, Bliss

   *Katherine Mansfield, The Fly

    Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh

    Guy de Maupassant, The Necklace

    Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener

   *Arthur Miller, The Performance

   *Steven Millhauser, Cat ‘N' Mouse

   *Nicholasa Mohr, Tell the Truth

    Rick Moody, Boys

    Lorrie Moore, How to Become a Writer

    Bharati Mukherjee, The Management of Grief

   *Alice Munro, Miles City, Montana

   *Haruki Murakami, Landscape with Flatiron

   *Joyce Carol Oates, The Lady with the Pet Dog

   *Joyce Carol Oates, Three Girls

    Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

    Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

    Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge

    Flannery O'Connor, Good Country People

    Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find

    Frank O'Connor, Guests of the Nation

    Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing

    Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl

   *ZZ Packer, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

    Grace Paley, A Conversation with My Father

    Octavio Paz, My Life with the Wave

    Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado

    Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher

    Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart

   *Katherine Anne Porter, He

   *William Sidney Porter (O. Henry), The Gift of the Magi

    Annie Proulx, The Blood Bay

   *Alifa Rifaat, Distant View of a Minaret

    Philip Roth, The Conversion of the Jews

   *George Saunders, Brad Carrigan, American

    Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman

   *Helen Simpson, Café Society

    Susan Sontag, The Way We Live Now

    Gertrude Stein, Miss Furr and Miss Skeene

    John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums

   *Susan Straight, Mines

    Amy Tan, Two Kinds

    Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych

    Jean Toomer, Blood Burning Moon

    John Updike, A & P

   *Luisa Valenzuela, The Place of Its Quietude

    Helena Maria Viramontes, The Moths

    Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Harrison Bergeron

    Alice Walker, Everyday Use

   *David Foster Wallace, Incarnation of Burned Children

    Eudora Welty, Why I Live at the P.O.

    Eudora Welty, A Worn Path

    Edith Wharton, Roman Fever

    John Edgar Wideman, newborn thrown in trash and dies

    William Carlos Williams, The Use of Force

   *Tobias Wolff, Say Yes

    Virginia Woolf, Kew Gardens

    Richard Wright, The Man Who Was Almost a Man

   *Gao Xingjian, The Accident

    Hisaye Yamamoto, Wilshire Bus    

PART TWO: COMMENTARIES

    

    Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa: Conrad's Heart of Darkness

   *Sherman Alexie, Superman and Me

    Paula Gunn Allen, Whirlwind Man Steals Yellow Woman

   *Isabel Allende, Short Stories by Latin American Women

    Sherwood Anderson, Form, Not Plot, in the Short Story

    Margaret Atwood, Reading Blind

    James Baldwin, Autobiographical Notes

    Russell Banks, Author's Note

    Willa Cather, The Stories of Katherine Mansfield

   *Ann Charters, Translating Kafka

    Anton Chekov, Technique in Writing the Short Story

    John Cheever, Why I Write Short Stories

    Kate Chopin, How I Stumbled upon Maupassant

    Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Private History of "The Jumping Frog" Story

    Robert Coles, Tillie Olsen: The Iron and the Riddle

   *Julio Cortazar, On the Short Story and Its Environs

    Stephen Crane, The Sinking of the Commodore

    Ralph Ellison, The Influence of Folklore on Battle Royal

    Richard Ellmann, A Biographical Perspective on Joyce's The Dead

    William Faulkner, The Meaning of "A Rose for Emily"

    Richard Ford, Why We Like Chekov

    Carlos Fuentes, Mexico, The United States, and the Multicultural Future

   *Gabriel Garcia Marquez- The Challenge

    Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, A Feminist Reading of Gilman's" The Yellow Wallpaper"

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Undergoing the Cure for Nervous Prostration

    Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Why I Wrote "The Yellow Wallpaper"

    Janice H. Harris, Levels of Meaning in Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner"

    Washington Irving, Washington Irving, Letter to Henry Brevoort, December 11, 1824

    Shirley Jackson, The Morning of June 28, 1948, and "The Lottery"

    Henry James, The Genesis of "The Real Thing"

    Gustav Janouch, Kafka's View of The Metamorphosis

   *Gish Jen, On Ethnicity and Writing

    Sarah Orne Jewett, Looking Back on Girlhood

    James Weldon Johnson, Lynching in Tennessee

    Jamaica Kincaid, On "Girl"

    D. H. Lawrence, Draft Passage from "Odour of Chrysanthemums"

    Leslie Lee, Scene from the Screenplay of Almos' a Man

    Ursula K. Le Guin, The Scapegoat in Omelas

    Jack London, Jack London, Letter to the Editor on "To Build a Fire"

    Katherine Mansfield, Review of Woolf's "Kew Gardens"

    Bobbie Ann Mason, On Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"

    Guy de Maupassant, The Writer's Goal

    Herman Melville, Blackness in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

   *Louis Menand, True Story: The Art of Short Fiction

    J. Hillis Miller, Who Is He? Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener"

    Alice Munro, How I Write Short Stories

    Vladimir Nabokov, Gogol's Genius in "The Overcoat"

    Vladimir Nabokov, A Reading of Chekov's "The Lady with the Little Dog"

    J. C. C. Nachtigal, Peter Klaus the Goatherd

    Tim O'Brien, Alpha Company

    Frank O'Connor, The Nearest Thing to Lyric Poetry Is the Short Story

    Frank O'Connor, Style and Form in Joyce's The Dead

    Grace Paley, A Conversation with Ann Charters

    Jay Parini, Lawrence and Steinbeck's "Chrysanthemums"

   *Annie Proulx, Inspiration? Head Down the Back Road, and Stop for the Garage Sales

    Peter Rudy, Tolstoy's Revisions in The Death of Ivan Illych

    Edward Said, The Past and the Present: Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography

   *Joan Silber, Long Times in Short Stories, or Why Can't a Story Be More Like a Novel?

    Leslie Marmon Silko, Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective

   *Susan Sontag, Writing as Reading

    Amy Tan, In the Canon, For All the Wrong Reasons

   *Leo Tolstoy, Chekov's Intent in "The Darling"

    Lionel Trilling, The Greatness of Conrad's Heart of Darkness

   *Cheryl B. Torsney, "Everyday Use": My Sojourn at Parchman Farm

    John Updike, Kafka and The Metamorphosis

    Eudora Welty, Is Phoenix Jackson's Grandson Really Dead?

    Eudora Welty, Plot and Character in Chekov's "The Darling"

    Edith Wharton, Every Subject Must Contain within Itself Its Own Dimensions

    Richard Wright, Reading Fiction

    

PART THREE: CASEBOOKS

    

    CASEBOOK 1: RAYMOND CARVER

    Raymond Carver, On Writing

    Raymond Carver, Creative Writing 101

    Raymond Carver, The Ashtray

   *Raymond Carver, On Errand

   *Olga Knipper, Remembering Chekhov

   *Henry Troyat, Chekhov's Last Days

   *Tom Jenks, The Origin of "Cathedral"

    Arthur M. Saltzman, A Reading of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

    A.O. Scott, Looking for Raymond Carver

    

    CASEBOOK 2: ZORA NEALE HURSTON

    Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me

    Zora Neale Hurston, What White Publishers Won't Print

   *Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Slanguage

    Robert Bone, A Folkloric Analysis of Hurston's "Spunk" and "The Gilded Six-Bits"

    Rosalie Murphy Baum, The Shape of Hurston's Fiction

    Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston: A Cautionary Tale and a Partisan View

    

    CASEBOOK 3: FLANNERY O'CONNOR

    Flannery O'Connor, From Letters 1954-1955

    Flannery O'Connor, Writing Short Stories

    Flannery O'Connor, A Reasonable Use of the Unreasonable

    V. S. Pritchett, Flannery O'Connor: Satan Comes to Georgia

    Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., Flannery O'Connor and Her Readers

    Dorothy Tuck McFarland, On Good Country People

    Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetorical Reading of O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge Sally Fitzgerald, Southern Sources of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

    

   *CASEBOOK 4: JOYCE CAROL OATES

   *Joyce Carol Oates, from "Stories that Define Me: The Making of a Writer"

    Joyce Carol Oates, Smooth Talk: Short Story into Film

   *Don Moser, The Pied Piper of Tuscon

   *Matthew C. Brennan, Chekov's and Oates' "Lady with Dog"

   *Publishers Weekly, Review of I Am No One You Know

   *John Schwartz, Oates' I Am No One You Know

    

    CASEBOOK 5: EDGAR ALLAN POE

    Edgar Allan Poe, The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale

    D. H. Lawrence, On "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado"

    Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, A New Critical Reading of "The Fall of the House of Usher"

    James W. Gargano, The Question of Poe's Narrators in "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado"

    J. Gerald Kennedy, On "The Fall of the House of Usher"

    David S. Reynolds, Poe's Art of Transformation in "The Cask of Amontillado"

    Joan Dayan, Amorous Bondage: Poe, Ladies, and Slaves

    

   *CASEBOOK 6: GRAPHIC NARRATIVES

    new Scott McCloud, from Understanding Comics

   *Will Eisner, from "Hamlet on a Rooftop"

   * R. Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz, "A Hunger Artist"

   *Art Spiegelman, from Maus

   *Marjane Satrapi, from Persepolis

   *Gilbert Hernandez, "The Mystery Wen"

   * Jiro Taniguchi, "A Blanket of Cherry Blossoms"

   *Lynda Barry, "Two Questions"

    

PART FOUR: APPENDICES

    

   *1. READING SHORT STORIES [includes Grace Paley, "Samuel"]

    2. THE ELEMENTS OF FICTION

    3. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SHORT STORY

    4. WRITING ABOUT SHORT STORIES

   *5. LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

    6. GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS

    7. CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING OF AUTHORS AND STORIES

    

   * new to this edition