Now THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY brings together the best of the best - fifty-five extraordinary stories that represent a century's worth of unsurpassed accomplishments in this quintessentially American literary genre. Here are the stories that have endured the test of time: masterworks by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Saroyan, Flannery O'Connor, John Cheever, Eudora Welty, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Cynthia Ozick, and scores of others. These are the writers who have shaped and defined the landscape of the American short story, who have unflinchingly explored all aspects of the human condition, and whose works will continue to speak to us as we enter the next century. Their artistry is represented splendidly in these pages. THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series has also always been known for making literary discoveries, and discovery proved to be an essential part of selecting the stories for this volume too. Collections from years past yielded a rich harvest of surprises, stories that may have been forgotten but still retain their relevance and luster. The result is a volume that not only gathers some of the most significant stories of our century between two covers but resurrects a handful of lost literary gems as well. Of all the great writers whose work has appeared in the series, only John Updike's contributions have spanned five consecutive decades, from his first appearance, in 1959. Updike worked with coeditor Katrina Kenison to choose stories from each decade that meet his own high standards of literary quality.

    P. Lovecraft -- victim of a mysterious death that literally makes the skin crawl -- is about to bring these two writers face to face with a peril sprung from the pulps."The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril" is at once a valentine to an old-fashioned genre as well as a modern, meta-literary examination of the classic hero pulp. From the palaces and battlefields of warlord-plagued China to the seedy waterfronts of Providence, Rhode Island; from frozen seas and cursed islands to the dizzying and labyrinthine alleys and tunnels of lower Manhattan, Dent and Gibson, joined by the young pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard and a host of colorful characters, finally step out from behind the shadows of their creations to take part in a heroic journey far greater than any story they have imagined as they race to stop a madman destined to create a new empire born of, and based in, pure, gaseous evil."The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril" is a swashbuckling romantic tale of writersand writing, magic and love, marriage and fatherhood, and ambition and loss that weaves the true lives of its real-life characters into a fictional epic.

    of Orgueil unknown)• Beatrice Feels a Heart by Anna Koriath• Lost and Found: On Naomi Mitchison's Memoirs of a Spacewoman by Catherine Rockwood•   Review: Memoirs of a Spacewoman by Naomi Mitchison by Catherine Rockwood• What Vile by Mark Waldron• A Tree Party by Mark Waldron• Airspace by C. J. Evans• Divorce by C. J. Evans• Blur by Carmen Maria Machado