James Daley 
The World’s Greatest Short Stories 
Selections from Hemingway, Tolstoy, Woolf, Chekhov, Joyce, Updike and more

Wonderfully wide-ranging and enjoyable, this outstanding collection features short stories by great 19- and 20th-century writers from America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Western Europe.

Included are Hemingway’s ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, ‘ in which two waiters and a lonely customer in a Spanish cafe confront the concept of nothingness; ‘A & P, ‘ John Updike’s most anthologized story and one of his most popular; ‘Borges and I, ‘ typical Jorge Luis Borges — imaginative, philosophical, and mysterious; as well as short masterpieces by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Herman Melville, Thomas Mann, Guy de Maupassant, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, D. H. Lawrence, and ten other great writers.

Prime examples of the classic short story, these enduring literary treasures will be invaluable to students and teachers as well as to anyone who appreciates the finely turned tale.

Table of Content

Herman Melville–U.S.A.

Bartleby the Scrivener (1853)



Guy de Maupassant–France

The Necklace (1884)



Leo Tolstoy–Russia

The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886)



Rudyard Kipling–England

The Man Who Would Be King (1888)



Charlotte Perkins Gilman–U.S.A.

The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)



Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis–Brazil

The Fortune-Teller (1896)



Anton Chekhov–Russia

The Lady with the Toy Dog (1899)



Rainer Maria Rilke–Germany

How Old Timofei Died with a Song (1900)



Thomas Mann–Germany

The Path to the Cemetery (1901)



D. H. Lawrence–England

The Prussian Officer (1914)



James Joyce–Ireland

Araby (1914)



Luigi Pirandello–Italy

Mrs. Frola and Mr. Ponza, Her Son-in-Law (1917)



Virginia Woolf–England

The Mark on the Wall (1921)



Franz Kafka–Czechoslovakia

A Hunger Artist (1922)



Katherine Mansfield–England

The Garden-Party (1922)



Yasunari Kawabata–Japan

The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket (1924)



Ernest Hemingway–U.S.A.

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (1926)



Chinua Achebe–Nigeria

The Sacrificial Egg (1959)



John Updike–U.S.A.

A & P (1961)



Jorge Luis Borges–Argentina

Borges and I (1962)