Synopses & Reviews
"The inadequate acknowledgement of women short story writers in standard anthologies is a cause for wonder or affront. How else, indeed, can you view it, given the riches overlooked?" So states editor Patricia Craig in her introduction to
The Oxford Book of Modern Women's Stories, a rich, wide-ranging collection that, at last, redresses this historical imbalance by bringing together forty examples of the very best women's stories--from established authors such as Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, and Katherine Mansfield, to such modern masters as Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Bharati Mukherjee, and Amy Tan.
Here readers will find humor, passion, eccentricity, forcefulness, élan, intellectual vigor, subversion--indeed every shading of tone and mood, from ironic detachment to full-blooded engagement. Each writer has her own, perfectly realized angle of vision, whether it's the zestfulness of Angela Carter, the breathtaking evocations of Willa Cather, the quirkiness of Grace Paley, or the pungency of Flannery O'Connor.
Breaking with tradition, editor Patricia Craig offers few stories about traditional "women's" topics. Instead, the entries in this collection range from an unforgettable tale of racism in South Africa to explorations of adultery, immigration, the importance of cultural identity, and the rootlessness of American cities. Craig also includes some provocative offerings from outside the mainstream of twentieth century fiction--a ghost story by Edith Wharton, a delightful fairy tale, and several engaging historical pieces.
Eloquent and captivating, The Oxford Book of Modern Women's Stories offers a dazzling assortment of classic stories and overlooked gems that will amuse, intrigue, and challenge every lover of fine fiction.
About the Author
About the Editor: Patricia Craig is the editor of The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories, The Penguin Book of British Comic Stories, and many other fine anthologies.
Table of Contents
1. "Paul's Case", Willa Cather
2. "Afterward", Edith Wharton
3. "Hear the Nightingale Sing", Caroline Gordon
4. "Je Ne Parle Pas Francias", Catherine Mansfield
5. "Miss De Mannering of Asham", F. M. Mayor
6. "That Tree", Katherine Anne Porter
7. "Look at all Those Roses", Elizabeth Bowen
8. "In a Winter Landscape", Olivia Manning
9. "A Legacy", Virginia Woolf
10. "First Love", Eudora Welty
11. "Is There Life Beyond the Gravy?", Stevie Smith
12. "Yonder Peasant, Who is He?", Mary McCarthy
13. "Which New Era Would That Be?", Nadine Gordimer
14. "The Day Mr Prescott Died", Sylvia Plath
15. "The Day Stalin Died", Doris Lessing
16. "The Blush", Elizabeth Taylor
17. "An Interest in Life", Grace Paley
18. "UNO 1945", Christina Stead
19. "The Rehabilitation of Gineva Leake", Hortense Calisher
20. "The Tea Time of Stouthearted Ladies", Jean Stafford
21. "The House of the Famous Poet", Muriel Spark
22. "Good Country People", Flannery O'Connor
23. "Healthy Landscape With Dormouse", Sylvia Townsend Warner
24. "Irish Revel", Edna O'Brien
25. "The Butterfly and the Traffic Light", Cynthia Ozick
26. "Scenes of Passion and Despair", Joyce Carol Oates
27. "Something to Tell the Girls", Jane Gardam
28. "A Star and Two Girls", Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
29. "Overture and Beginners Please", Jean Rhys
30. "Hair Jewellery", Margaret Atwood
31. "Puss-in-Boots", Angela Carter
32. "The Terrors of Basket Weaving", Patricia Highsmith
33. "The Play Reading", Elizabeth Jolley
34. "In the Great War", Fay Weldon
35. "Victory Over Japan", Ellen Gilchrist
36. "On the Day that E. M. Forster Died", A. S. Byatt
37. "A Wife's Story", Bharati Mukherjee
38. "A Pair of Tickets", Amy Tan
39. "Meneseteung", Alice Munro
40. "The Prophecy", Anjana Appachana