Best of
Short-Stories

1941

The Library of Babel


Jorge Luis Borges - 1941
    Jorge Luis Borges's famous 1941 meditation on language, alphabets, and the library that contains all knowledge is an allegory of our Universe, and in this edition is complemented and enhanced by the etching of the French artist, Érik Desmazières.

The Garden of Forking Paths


Jorge Luis Borges - 1941
    It was the first of Borges's works to be translated into English by Anthony Boucher when it appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in August 1948.

Why I Live at the P.O. and Other Stories


Eudora Welty - 1941
    Her reputation rests largely on her skill and delicacy in portraying a wide range of characters, rich and poor, black and white. Her style is marked by her perception of the Southern character, her ear for colloquial speech and her ability to endow her portraits of small-town life with a universal significance. Included are four stories that capture the heart of the American South.

Nightfall


Isaac Asimov - 1941
    Do you see it?”The question was rather unnecessary. Beta was almost at zenith, itsruddy light flooding the landscape to an unusual orange as the brilliantrays of setting Gamma died. Beta was at aphelion. It was small; smaller thanTheremon had ever seen it before, and for the moment it was undisputed rulerof Lagash’s sky.Lagash’s own sun, Alpha, the one about which it revolved, was at theantipodes, as were the two distant companion pairs. The red dwarf Beta — Alpha’s immediate companion — was alone, grimly alone.Aton’s upturned face flushed redly in the sunlight. “In just under fourhours,” he said, “civilization, as we know it, comes to an end. It will doso because, as you see, Beta is the only sun in the sky.” He smiled grimly.“Print that! There’ll be no one to read it.

The Royal Game and Other Stories


Stefan Zweig - 1941
    When he added fiction to his repertoire, he won even more critical acclaim. After his death, however, his work fell inexplicably into obscurity.The Royal Game and Other Stories is a collection of five of Stefan Zweig's brilliant and creative psychological thrillers. Filled with emotional extreme from obsessive love to pathological revenge to the madness caused by an imaginary chess game these masterpieces revive his art, making it once again available to a new generation of readers.This collection includes "The Royal Game," "Amok," "The Burning Secret," "Fear," and "Letter from an Unknown Woman," as well as an introduction by Jeffrey B. Berlin.

A Curtain of Green and Other Stories


Eudora Welty - 1941
    A Curtain of Green both introduced and established Eudora Welty as in instinctive genius of short fiction, and in this groundbreaking collection, which includes "Powerhouse" and "Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden," are the first great works of a great American writer.

The Heart of a Broken Story


J.D. Salinger - 1941
    

Astounding Science Fiction, October 1941


John W. Campbell Jr.Frank Kramer - 1941
    Campbell Jr.By His Bootstraps / by Robert A. Heinlein (writing as Anson MacDonald); interior artwork by Hubert RogersIn Times to Come / essay by The EditorThe Analytical Laboratory: August 1941 / essay by The EditorNot Final! (Jovians #1) / by Isaac Asimov; interior artwork by KollikerThe Sea King's Armored Division (Part 2 of 2) / essay by L. Sprague de CampManic Perverse / by Winston K. Marks; interior artwork by Frank KramerTwo Percent Inspiration / by Theodore Sturgeon; interior artwork by Hubert RogersCommon Sense / by Robert A. Heinlein; interior artwork by Paul OrbanBrass Tacks / essay by The EditorLetters / P. Schuyler Miller; Paul A. Carter; and E. Everett Evans

Reason


Isaac Asimov - 1941
    It is part of Asimov's Robot series, and was the second of Asimov's positronic robot stories to see publication.Powell and Donovan are assigned to a space station which supplies energy via microwave beams to the planets. The robots that control the energy beams are in turn co-ordinated by QT1, known to Powell and Donovan as Cutie, an advanced model with highly developed reasoning ability. Using these abilities, Cutie decides that space, stars and the planets beyond the station don't really exist, and that the humans that visit the station are unimportant, short-lived and expendable. QT1 makes the lesser robots disciples of a new religion, which considers the power source of the ship to be "Master."

The Lottery in Babylon


Jorge Luis Borges - 1941
    "The Lottery in Babylon"/"La lotería en Babilonia", first appeared in 1941 in the literary magazine Sur, and was then included in the 1941 collection The Garden of Forking Paths (El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan), which in turn became the part one of Ficciones (1944)

A Northern Christmas


Rockwell Kent - 1941
    Published here in its original format, with Kent's striking illustrations, this charming keepsake edition is sure to delight a new generation of readers.

101 Years' Entertainment: The Great Detective Stories, 1841-1941


Ellery Queen - 1941
    Anthology of detective and/or crime short stories.

Erskine Caldwell Collected Stories


Erskine Caldwell - 1941
    Illustrations provided by Dennis Lyall.

The Biscuit Eater


James H. Street - 1941
    After all they are born to it — boys and bird dogs grow up together. They're hunters. It's in their blood.When one of the champion dogs has a litter of seven yelping, squirming pups, their dream comes true. They are given a dog of their own to raise and train. They bond instantly, beginning a journey of love and responsibility that hones their skills and challenges their characters. Yet the lineage of the dog is questionable and Lonnie's father wonders if the scrawny, wobbly-legged dog is a biscuit eater — an ornery dog that won't hunt anything except his own biscuits; an animal that may have to be destroyed.After its publication in 1941, The Biscuit Eater rapidly became an American best-seller and was made into a film after the Second World War.

The Drum Goes Dead


Bess Streeter Aldrich - 1941
    Set in the late Depression years, a good man dreads the return of Christmas in the face of hardships and sorrow he sees around him.

The Golden Skylark and Other Stories


Elizabeth Goudge - 1941
    Included are "The Cat and the Sailing Ship", "A Crock of Gold", "The New Moon", "The Dark Lady" and many others, all with her sympathetic knowledge of human nature and her marvelous skill at portraying the English countryside and the world of childhood.

The Garden of Forking Paths


Jorge Luis Borges - 1941
    It is the title story in the collection "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan" (1941), which was republished in its entirety in "Ficciones" (Fictions) in 1944.The story's theme has been said to foreshadow the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Borges's vision of "forking paths" has been cited as inspiration by numerous new media scholars, in particular within the field of hypertext fiction. Other stories by Borges that express the idea of infinite texts include "The Library of Babel" and "The Book of Sand".Key concepts:-Alternate history-Choose Your Own Adventure-Gilles Deleuze's use of this story to illustrate the Leibnizian concept of several impossible worlds simultaneously existing and the problem of future contingents.-"Coherence", a 2013 film about people who must deal with reality-bending events following a comet sighting.-Many-minds interpretation-Many-worlds interpretation-Multiverse