Best of
Short-Stories

1954

Quite Early One Morning: Stories


Dylan Thomas - 1954
    Many of the 25 short stories, autobiographical sketches and essays in Quite Early One Morning, a volume planned by Thomas shortly before his death, were read by him on such occasions. They are alive with his verbal magic, his intense perception of life, his gargantuan humor and with the very ring of his voice.Included in this collection of prose pieces are such favorites as the hilarious “A Visit to America,” the account of a small boy’s marvelous day’s outing—“A Story,” and the memorable “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” which has been called ‘the twentieth century Christmas Carol.’ Other pieces show Thomas’s power as a sensitive critic of poetry and as an exponent of his own intent as a poet.

All Summer in a Day


Ray Bradbury - 1954
    She remembers the sun shining on Earth, something it rarely does on Venus. "All Summer in a Day" takes place on the one day when Venus's rain will stop, and the sun will shine for a couple of hours only.

Answer


Fredric Brown - 1954
    The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing. He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe -- ninety-six billion planets -- into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies."

The Second Tree from the Corner


E.B. White - 1954
    But no matter what his subject, Mr. White always writes about it in a prose that is a joy to read."--New York Times

Faulkner Reader


William Faulkner - 1954
    The Sound and the Fury, selections from other novels, three novellas, nine stories, the Nobel Prize address, etc.

Third from the Sun


Richard Matheson - 1954
    Contents:· Born of Man and Woman · vi F&SF Sum ’50 · Third from the Sun · ss Galaxy Oct ’50 · Lover, When You’re Near Me · nv Galaxy May ’52 · SRL Ad · ss F&SF Apr ’52 · Mad House · nv Fantastic Jan/Feb ’53 · F--- [“The Foodlegger”] · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’52 · Dear Diary · ss Born of Man and Woman, Chamberlain, 1954 · To Fit the Crime · ss Fantastic Nov/Dec ’52 · Dress of White Silk · ss F&SF Oct ’51 · Disappearing Act · ss F&SF Mar ’53 · The Wedding · ss Beyond Fantasy Fiction Jul ’53 · Shipshape Home · ss Galaxy Jul ’52 · The Traveller · ss Born of Man and Woman, Chamberlain, 1954

Roman Tales


Alberto Moravia - 1954
    They were first published as a collection in 1954. All of the stories are set in Rome or its surroundings after World War II, and focus on 'the common people of Rome' (Roma popolana). The characters in these stories tend to be the unemployed, ex-convicts, waiters, drivers, con artists, thieves and petty criminals, the average man (or woman) and the lower classes aspiring to climb out of poverty.All the stories are told in the first person with the narrator often unnamed, although details are usually furnished to provide a clue to the narrator's identity, such as their occupation, motivations, and social status. Moravia's Racconti Romani provide a snapshot on life in Rome after World War II, revealing much about the inhabitants of Rome in the early 1950s.

Exhibit Piece


Philip K. Dick - 1954
    But when George investigates an odd noise in the exhibit, he stumbles upon a strange reality existing inside of his replica.Philip K. Dick was an American science-fiction novelist, short-story writer and essayist. His first short story, “Beyond Lies the Wub,” was published shortly after his high school graduation. Some of his most famous short stories were adapted for film, including “The Minority Report,” “Paycheck,” “Second Variety” (adapted into the film Screamers) and “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” (adapted into the film Total Recall).HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperCollins short-stories collection to build your digital library.

A Frieze of Girls: Memoirs as Fiction


Allan Seager - 1954
    This is more than Allan Seager's story of what happened; it is also about how "the feel of truth is very like the feel of fiction, especially when either is at all strange."Seager gives us his coming-of-age story, from a high-school summer as a sometime cowboy in the Big Horn mountains to a first job at seventeen managing an antiquated factory in Memphis to a hard-drinking scholarship year in Oxford, cut short by tuberculosis. At once funny with an undercurrent of pain, the stories in A Frieze of Girls remind us of the realities we create to face the world and the past, and in turn of the realities of the world we must inevitably also confront.

Stories of Five Decades


Hermann Hesse - 1954
    Francis of Assisi (1919)Inside and Outside (1920)Tragic (1923)Dream Journeys (1927)Harry, the Steppenwolf (1928)An Evening with Dr. Faust (1929)Edmund (1934)The Interrupted Class (1948)

The Saturday Evening Post Treasury


Roger Butterfield - 1954
    

A Circle in the Fire and Other Stories


Flannery O'Connor - 1954
    He had stuffed his own emptiness with good works like a glutton.’ In ‘The Lame Shall Enter First’, one of the unforgettable stories in this collection, a widower realises that the charity of which he has been so indignantly proud was but a means of stifling his grief. The violent epiphany that seizes him comes too late – the tragedies wrought by self-delusion and hubris may, finally, be understood, but they may not always be repaired. This is the central theme of Flannery O’Connor’s coruscating, plain-speaking fiction: the painful, necessary salvation that emerges from catastrophic, life-changing, and sometimes life-ending, events.O’Connor was the first fiction writer born in the 20th century to have her works collected and published by the Library of America. She grew up in a Roman Catholic family in Savannah, Georgia and stated that her writing was an expression of her religious commitment. Her characters are torn between the sensory and the spiritual, many of them gripped by morbid preoccupations as they attempt unsuccessfully to unite these dual impulses. Warped park guard Enoch Emery performs ritualistic tours, spying on female bathers and aggravating the animals at the zoo, awaiting the sign that will tell him to reveal the ‘mystery’ at ‘The Heart of the Park’. Many are fanatics, like the blind preacher in ‘The Peeler’. They, and their stories, are comic-grotesque, intertwining glimpses of the transcendental world with physical and psychological horror. This selection includes ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’ and ‘Everything that Rises Must Converge’, two of O’Connor’s best-known works. Deanna Staffo’s powerful illustrations capture O’Connor’s Southern settings and macabre, surrealistic style. In a compelling introduction, American author C. E. Morgan, selected as one of The New Yorker’s prestigious ‘20 Under 40’ writers, explores the stories’ uncompromising, idiosyncratic wisdom.

Mr. Maugham Himself


W. Somerset Maugham - 1954
    Harrington's WashingThe Book BagEl GrecoThe Summing UpFrom A Writer's Notebook

Badge of Infamy and the Sky Is Falling


Lester del Rey - 1954
    Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Line to Tomorrow


Lewis Padgett - 1954
    CONTENTSLine to Tomorrow A Gnome There Was What You Need Private EyeThe TwonkyCompliments of the AuthorWhen the Bough Breaks

Golden Treasury of Bible Stories


Arthur Whitefield Spalding - 1954