The Complete Stories


Franz KafkaEithne Wilkins - 1946
    With the exception of his three novels, the whole of Kafka’s narrative work is included in this volume. --penguinrandomhouse.comTwo Introductory parables: Before the law --Imperial message --Longer stories: Description of a struggle --Wedding preparations in the country --Judgment --Metamorphosis --In the penal colony --Village schoolmaster (The giant mole) --Blumfeld, and elderly bachelor --Warden of the tomb --Country doctor --Hunter Gracchus --Hunter Gracchus: A fragment --Great Wall of China --News of the building of the wall: A fragment --Report to an academy --Report to an academy: Two fragments --Refusal --Hunger artist --Investigations of a dog --Little woman --The burrow --Josephine the singer, or the mouse folk --Children on a country road --The trees --Clothes --Excursion into the mountains --Rejection --The street window --The tradesman --Absent-minded window-gazing --The way home --Passers-by --On the tram --Reflections for gentlemen-jockeys --The wish to be a red Indian --Unhappiness --Bachelor's ill luck --Unmasking a confidence trickster --The sudden walk --Resolutions --A dream --Up in the gallery --A fratricide --The next village --A visit to a mine --Jackals and Arabs --The bridge --The bucket rider --The new advocate --An old manuscript --The knock at the manor gate --Eleven sons --My neighbor --A crossbreed (A sport) --The cares of a family man --A common confusion --The truth about Sancho Panza --The silence of the sirens --Prometheus --The city coat of arms --Poseidon --Fellowship --At night --The problem of our laws --The conscripton of troops --The test --The vulture --The helmsman --The top --A little fable --Home-coming --First sorrow --The departure --Advocates --The married couple --Give it up! --On parables.

Different Seasons


Stephen King - 1982
    Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption--the most satisfying tale of unjust imprisonment and offbeat escape since The Count of Monte Cristo.Apt Pupil--a golden California schoolboy and an old man whose hideous past he uncovers enter into a fateful and chilling mutual parasitism.The Body--four rambunctious young boys venture into the Maine woods and in sunlight and thunder find life, death, and intimations of their own mortality.The Breathing Method--a tale told in a strange club about a woman determined to give birth no matter what.source: stephenking.com

Lamb to the Slaughter and Other Stories


Roald Dahl - 1953
    Parson's Pleasure is a country tale, A Piece of Cake, a wartime reminiscence, Lamb to the Slaughter a story of vengeful murder, and the remaining two, The Bookseller and The Butler, are on favorite themes of greed and snobbery.

A White Heron


Sarah Orne Jewett - 1886
    A friend to birds and animals, it is only when she is befriended by a young male ornithologist that Sylvia comes head on with conflicts over value systems and loyalties. The resolution of this dilemma is skillfully wrought, revealing the complexity of the decision making-process and the ethical conundrum that will save, or destroy, the earth.

The Sculptor's Funeral


Willa Cather - 2009
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Literary Theory: An Anthology


Julie Rivkin - 1997
    This anthology of classic and cutting-edge statements in literary theory has now been updated to include recent influential texts in the areas of Ethnic Studies, Postcolonialism and International StudiesA definitive collection of classic statements in criticism and new theoretical work from the past few decades All the major schools and methods that make up the dynamic field of literary theory are represented, from Formalism to Postcolonialism Enables students to familiarise themselves with the most recent developments in literary theory and with the traditions from which these new theories derive

A River Runs Through it and Other Stories


Norman Maclean - 1976
    A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx.Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father.

The Short Novels of John Steinbeck


John Steinbeck - 2009
    From the tale of commitment, loneliness and hope in Of Mice and Men, to the tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society in Cannery Row, to The Pearl's examination of the fallacy of the American dream, Steinbeck stories of realism, that were imbued with energy and resilience.

The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories


Carson McCullers - 1951
    Among other fine works, the collection also includes “Wunderkind,” McCullers’s first published story written when she was only seventeen about a musical prodigy who suddenly realizes she will not go on to become a great pianist. Newly reset and available for the first time in a handsome trade paperback edition, The Ballad of the Sad Café is a brilliant study of love and longing from one of the South’s finest writers.

100 Best-Loved Poems


Philip SmithRobert Herrick - 1995
    Dating from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, these splendid poems remain evergreen in their capacity to engage our minds and refresh our spirits. Among them are Marlowe: "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"; Shakespeare: "Sonnet XVIII" ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"); Donne: "Holy Sonnet X" ("Death, be not proud"); Marvell: "To His Coy Mistress"; Wordsworth: "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"; Shelley: "Ode to the West Wind"; Longfellow: "The Children's Hour"; Poe: "The Raven"; Tennyson: "The Charge of the Light Brigade"; Whitman: "O Captain! My Captain!"; Dickinson: "This Is My Letter to the World"; Yeats: "When You Are Old"; Frost: "The Road Not Taken"; Millay: "First Fig."Works by many other poets — Milton, Blake, Burns, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Emerson, the Brownings, Hardy, Housman, Kipling, Pound, and Auden among them — are included in this treasury, a perfect companion for quiet moments of reflection.

Four Major Plays: A Doll's House / Ghosts / Hedda Gabler / The Master Builder


Henrik Ibsen - 1879
    Taken from the highly acclaimed Oxford Ibsen, this collection of Ibsen's plays includes A Doll's House, Ghosts, Hedda Gabler and The Master Builder.

50 Essays: A Portable Anthology


Samuel Cohen - 2003
    The carefully chosen table of contents presents enough familiarity to reassure instructors, enough novelty to keep things interesting, and enough variety to accommodate many different teaching needs. The editorial apparatus has been designed to support that variety of needs without being intrusive. In its second edition, 50 Essays continues to offer selections that instructors love to teach, with even more flexibility and more support for academic writing.

The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction


Joyce Carol OatesE.L. Doctorow - 2008
    Beha, this volume provides an important overview of the contemporary short story and a selection of the very best that American short fiction has to offer.Contents:The toughest Indian in the world by Sherman AlexieLobster night by Russell BanksThe hermit's story by Rick Bass1-900 by Richard BauschPoor devil by Charles BaxterLavande by Ann BeattieO. by Aimee BenderMercy by Pinckney BenedictThe love of my life by T.C. BoyleThe identity club by Richard BurginThe son of the wolfman by Michael ChabonNight women by Edwidge DanticatTelevision by Lydia DavisAurora by Junot DíazA house on the Plains by E.L. DoctorowDeath of the right fielder by Stuart DybekThe girl who left her sock on the floor by Deborah EisenbergDisaster stamps of Pluto by Louise ErdrichReunion by Richard FordRêve haitien by Ben FountainThe girl on the plane by Mary GaitskillThe paperhanger by William GayCity visit by Adam HaslettTo those of you who missed your connecting flights out of O'Hare by Amy HempelEmergency by Denis JohnsonDouble exposure by Greg JohnsonOld boys, old girls by Edward P. JonesAdina, Astrid, Chipewee, Jasmine by Matthew KlamBaboons by Sheila KohlerOnce in a lifetime by Jhumpa LahiriSome terpsichore by Elizabeth McCrackenCowboy by Thomas McGuaneSault Ste. Marie by David MeansRanch girl by Maile MeloyThe new automaton theater by Steven MillhauserPaper losses by Lorrie MooreStitches by Antonya NelsonLand. ll by Joyce Carol OatesOn the rainy river by Tim O'BrienThe escort by Chuck PalahniukPeople in hell just want a drink of water by Annie ProulxThe red bow by George SaundersLeslie and Sam by Douglas UngerThe brown chest by John UpdikeIncarnations of burned children by David Foster WallaceCinnamon skin by Edmund WhiteWho invented the jump shot by John Edgar WidemanBullet in the brain by Tobias Wol

Dark Roots


Cate Kennedy - 2006
    This arresting collection introduces a new master of the short story.Following her American debut in The New Yorker, Australian Cate Kennedy delivers a mesmerizing collection of award-winning stories that daringly travel to the deepest depths of the human psyche. In this sublimely sophisticated and compulsively readable collection, Kennedy opens up worlds of finely observed detail to explore the collision between simmering inner lives, the cold outside world, and the hidden motivations that propel us all to act. In just a few pages, Kennedy captures entire lives, expertly documenting the risks and compromises made in both forging and escaping relationships. Her stories are populated by people on the brink: whether it’s a woman floundering with her own loss and emotional immobility as her lover lies in a coma; a neglected wife who cannot convince her husband of the truth about his two brutish, shamelessly libidinous friends; or a married woman who comes to realize that her too-tight wedding ring isn’t the only thing that’s stuck in her relationship. Each character must make a choice and none is without consequence—even the smallest decisions have the power to destroy or renew, to recover and relinquish.

Literature: A Portable Anthology


Janet E. Gardner - 2003
    The literature is chronologically arranged by genre and supported by informative and concise editorial matter, including a complete guide to writing about literature at the back of the book. This volume in Bedford/St. Martin’s popular series of Portable Anthologies and Guides offers the series’ trademark combination of high quality and great value.