Synopses & Reviews
From Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy, through Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf, right up to Graham Greene, J.G. Ballard, Angela Carter, Ian McEwan, and many others, The Oxford Book of English Short Stories encompasses comedy and tragedy, farce and delicacy, elegance and the grotesque. Edited by noted novelist A. S. Byatt, the thirty-seven stories gathered here range from social realism to surreal fantasy, from rural poverty to war-blitzed London, from tales of the supernatural to precise delineations of the mundane, all unified by Byatts demanding criteria that the works be both startling and satisfying, and if possible make the hairs on the neck prickle with excitement, aesthetic or narrative. For short story lovers and anyone unable to resist the enchantments of the English imagination, The Oxford Book of English Short Stories offers a wide array of unforgettable pleasures, now reissued with a fresh, contemporary feel.
About the Author
A. S. Byatt is a novelist, essayist, broadcaster, and reviewer, and has taught at University College London. She won the Booker Prize for her novel Possession (1990), and her other books include Angels and Insects (1992), and Babel Tower (1996).
Table of Contents
The Sacristan of St Botolph, William Gilbert
The Haunted House, Charles Dickens
Relics of General Chasse, A Tale of Antwerp, Anthony Trollope
A Mere Interlude, Thomas Hardy
Little Brother, Mary Mann
Two Doctors, M. R. James
Behind the Shade, Arthur Morrison
Wireless, Rudyard Kipling
Under the Knife, H. G. Wells
A White Night, Charlotte Mew
The Toys of Peace, Saki
The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown, G. K. Chesterton
Some Talk of Alexander, A. E. Coppard
The Reverent Wooing of Archibald, P. G. Wodehouse
Solid Objects, Virginia Woolf
The Man who Loved Islands, D. H. Lawrence
A Tragedy in Green, Ronald Firbank
A Widow's Quilt, Sylvia Townsend Warner
Nuns at Luncheon, Aldous Huxley
Landlord of the Crystal Fountain, Malachi Whitaker
On the Edge of the Cliff, V. S. Pritchett
A Dream of Winter, Rosamund Lehmann
An Englishman's Home, Evelyn Waugh
The Destructors, Graham Greene
The Waterfall, H. E. Bates
The Troll, T. H. White
The Blush, Elizabeth Taylor
At Hiruharama, Penelope Fitzgerald
My Flannel Knickers, Leonora Carrington
Enoch's Two Letters, Alan Sillitoe
Dream Cargoes, J. G. Ballard
Telephone, John Fuller
My Story, John Fuller
The Kiss, Angela Carter
The Beauty of the Dawn Shift, Rose Tremain
Solid Geometry, Ian McEwan
Dead Languages, Philip Hensher