The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction

by Ann Charters (Editor)

Other authors: Abe Akira (Contributor), Chinua Achebe (Contributor), Sherman Alexie (Contributor), Paula Gunn Allen (Contributor), Woody Allen (Contributor) — 91 more, Isabel Allende (Contributor), Dorothy Allison (Contributor), Robert Altman (Contributor), Julia Alvarez (Contributor), Martin Amis (Contributor), Sherwood Anderson (Contributor), Margaret Atwood (Contributor), Isaac Babel (Contributor), James Baldwin (Contributor), Toni Cade Bambara (Contributor), Russell Banks (Contributor), John Barth (Contributor), Donald Barthelme (Contributor), Rosalie Murphy Baum (Contributor), Ann Beattie (Contributor), Samuel Beckett (Contributor), Gina Berriault (Contributor), Wayne C. Booth (Contributor), Tadeusz Borowski (Contributor), Leslie Brill (Contributor), Robert H. Brinkmeyer (Contributor), Italo Calvino (Contributor), Albert Camus (Contributor), Ethan Canin (Contributor), Angela Carter (Contributor), Charles Chesnutt (Contributor), Sandra Cisneros (Contributor), Robert Coles (Contributor), Julio Cortázar (Contributor), Junot Díaz (Contributor), Don DeLillo (Contributor), Anthony Di Renzo (Contributor), Richard Ellmann (Contributor), Mary Gaitskill (Contributor), Tess Gallagher (Contributor), Mavis Gallant (Contributor), Gabriel García Márquez (Contributor), Sandra M. Gilbert (Contributor), Susan Gubar (Contributor), Janice H. Harris (Contributor), Bessie Head (Contributor), Carolyn G. Heilbrun (Contributor), Amy Hempel (Contributor), James Hillman (Contributor), Washington Irving (Contributor), Corinne Jacker (Contributor), Gustav Janouch (Contributor), Gish Jen (Contributor), Tom Jenks (Contributor), Charles Johnson (Contributor), W. P. Kinsella (Contributor), Olga Knipper (Contributor), Margaret Laurence (Contributor), Ursula Le Guin (Contributor), Leslie Lee (Contributor), Simon O. Lesser (Contributor), Clarice Lispector (Contributor), Lu Xun (Contributor), Ellen McCracken (Contributor), Dorothy Tuck McFarland (Contributor), J. Hillis Miller (Contributor), Lorrie Moore (Contributor), Bharati Mukherjee (Contributor), Vladimir Nabokov (Contributor), J. C. C. Nachtigal (Contributor), Tim O'Brien (Contributor), Julián Olivares (Contributor), Jay Parini (Contributor), William Sydney Porter (Contributor), V. S. Pritchett (Contributor), Alvina E. Quintana (Contributor), Philip Roth (Contributor), Gabrielle Roy (Contributor), Peter Rudy (Contributor), Salman Rushdie (Contributor), Edward Said (Contributor), Arthur M. Saltzman (Contributor), Carol Shields (Contributor), Leslie Marmon Silko (Contributor), John Simon (Contributor), Jane Smiley (Contributor), Susan Sontag (Contributor), Gertrude Stein (Contributor), Amy Tan (Contributor), Lionel Trilling (Contributor), Henri Troyat (Contributor), Helena María Viramontes (Contributor), Kurt Vonnegut (Contributor), John Edgar Wideman (Contributor), Tobias Wolff (Contributor), Marc Zimmerman (Contributor)

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1,136	3	17,799	(3.93)	3
During her many years of teaching introduction to fiction courses, Ann Charters developed an acute sense of which stories work most effectively in the classroom. She also discovered that writers, not editors, have the most interesting and useful things to say about the making and the meaning of fiction. Accordingly, her choice of fiction in the first edition of her The Story and Its Writer was as notable for its student appeal as it was for its quality and range. And to complement these stories, she introduced a lasting innovation: an array of the writers' own commentaries on the craft and traditions of the short story. In subsequent editions her sense of what works was confirmed as the book evolved into the most comprehensive, diverse-- and bestselling -- introduction to fiction anthology. Instructors rely on Ann Charters' ability to assemble an authoritative and teachable anthology, and anticipate each edition's selection of new writers and stories.… (more)

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There are some earth-shattering works of fiction here - Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych", Ellison's "Battle Royale", Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been". The anthology is arranged alphabetically, so there is a thematic randomness if you read it straight through. The variety of modern and contemporary stories reveal one common trait of genius writers - the ability to observe the human scene. (

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jonbrammer | Jul 1, 2023 |

An excellent short fiction anthology which includes insightful and entertaining commentary from thirty-five of the eighty-four authors represented. (

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dreamingtereza | Feb 15, 2006 |

Education

CPI | Jul 29, 2016 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Charters, Ann	Editor	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Abe Akira	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Achebe, Chinua	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Alexie, Sherman	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Allen, Paula Gunn	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Allen, Woody	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Allende, Isabel	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Allison, Dorothy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Altman, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Alvarez, Julia	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Amis, Martin	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Anderson, Sherwood	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Atwood, Margaret	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Babel, Isaac	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Baldwin, James	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Bambara, Toni Cade	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Banks, Russell	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Barth, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Barthelme, Donald	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Baum, Rosalie Murphy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Beattie, Ann	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Beckett, Samuel	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Berriault, Gina	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Booth, Wayne C.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Borowski, Tadeusz	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Brill, Leslie	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Brinkmeyer, Robert H.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Calvino, Italo	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Camus, Albert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Canin, Ethan	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Carter, Angela	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Chesnutt, Charles	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cisneros, Sandra	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Coles, Robert	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Cortázar, Julio	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Díaz, Junot	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
DeLillo, Don	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Di Renzo, Anthony	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Ellmann, Richard	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Gaitskill, Mary	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Gallagher, Tess	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Gallant, Mavis	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
García Márquez, Gabriel	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Gilbert, Sandra M.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Gubar, Susan	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Harris, Janice H.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Head, Bessie	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Heilbrun, Carolyn G.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Hempel, Amy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Hillman, James	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Irving, Washington	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Jacker, Corinne	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Janouch, Gustav	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Jen, Gish	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Jenks, Tom	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Johnson, Charles	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Kinsella, W. P.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Knipper, Olga	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Laurence, Margaret	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Le Guin, Ursula	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lee, Leslie	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lesser, Simon O.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lispector, Clarice	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Lu Xun	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
McCracken, Ellen	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
McFarland, Dorothy Tuck	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Miller, J. Hillis	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Moore, Lorrie	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Mukherjee, Bharati	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Nabokov, Vladimir	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Nachtigal, J. C. C.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
O'Brien, Tim	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Olivares, Julián	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Parini, Jay	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Porter, William Sydney	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Pritchett, V. S.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Quintana, Alvina E.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Roth, Philip	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Roy, Gabrielle	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rudy, Peter	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Rushdie, Salman	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Said, Edward	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Saltzman, Arthur M.	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Shields, Carol	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Silko, Leslie Marmon	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Simon, John	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Smiley, Jane	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Sontag, Susan	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Stein, Gertrude	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Tan, Amy	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Trilling, Lionel	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Troyat, Henri	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Viramontes, Helena María	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Vonnegut, Kurt	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Wideman, John Edgar	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Wolff, Tobias	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed
Zimmerman, Marc	Contributor	secondary author	all editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Contains

The Yellow Wallpaper - story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Devil in Manuscript by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Cask of Amontillado [short story] by Edgar Allan Poe

The Oval Portrait [short story] by Edgar Allan Poe

The Overcoat by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

(show 68 more)

Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street by Herman Melville

A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by León Tolstói

A Story Without an End (Creative's Classics) by Mark Twain

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (short story) by Ambrose Bierce

The Real Thing by Henry James

A White Heron: A Story of Maine by Sarah Orne Jewett

The String (Creative Short Stories) by Guy de Maupassant

Miss Harriet and other stories by Guy de Maupassant

Regret by Kate Chopin

An Outpost of Progress by Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

A dama do cachorrinho by Anton Tschechow

Roman Fever [short story] by Edith Wharton

The Wish House [short story] by Rudyard Kipling

The Open Boat {story} by Stephen Crane

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane

Paul's Case {story} by Willa Cather

To Build a Fire [short story] by Jack London

Hands [short story] by Sherwood Anderson

Death in the Woods by Sherwood Anderson

The Higgler by A. E. Coppard

An Encounter [short story] by James Joyce

The Dead by James Joyce

Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

The Primrose Path by D. H. Lawrence

The Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence

The Old Chevalier by Isak Dinesen

Bliss by Katherine Mansfield

The Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield

Flowering Judas [short story] by Katherine Anne Porter

My First Goose by Isaac Babel

Guy de Maupassant by Isaak Babel

A Rose for Emily {story} by William Faulkner

Dry September by William Faulkner

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

First Love by Vladimir Nabokov

My Oedipus Complex [short story] by Frank O'Connor

Guests of the Nation by Frank O'Connor

A Crown of Feathers by Isaac Bashevis Singer

The Man Who Was Almost a Man by Richard Wright

A Worn Path by Eudora Welty

“The Enormous Radio” by John Cheever

The Swimmer by John Cheever

I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen

Battle Royal by Ralph Ellison

Homage for Isaac Babel [short fiction] by Doris Lessing

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

A Conversation with My Father by Grace Paley

A Good Man is Hard to Find [short story] by Flannery O'Connor

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel García Márquez

The Hitchhiking Game by Milan Kundera

Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth

Wife-wooing by John Updike

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? [short story] by Joyce Carol Oates

There Will Come Soft Rains [short story] by Ray Bradbury

The Tell-Tale Heart [short story] by Edgar Allan Poe

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty [short fiction] by James Thurber

To Room Nineteen [short story] by Doris Lessing

Harrison Bergeron [short story] by Kurt Vonnegut

Reminiscences [essay] by Virginia Woolf (indirect)

A Sketch of the Past [essay] by Virginia Woolf (indirect)

22 Hyde Park Gate [essay] by Virginia Woolf (indirect)

Old Bloomsbury [essay] by Virginia Woolf (indirect)

Am I a Snob? [essay] by Virginia Woolf (indirect)

Life-Story {story} by John Barth (indirect)

Autobiography: A Self-Recorded Fiction {story} by John Barth (indirect)

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Wikipedia in English (5)

Civil Peace

Peter Klaus

The Darling (Chekhov)

The Rememberer

Two Kinds

▾Book descriptions

During her many years of teaching introduction to fiction courses, Ann Charters developed an acute sense of which stories work most effectively in the classroom. She also discovered that writers, not editors, have the most interesting and useful things to say about the making and the meaning of fiction. Accordingly, her choice of fiction in the first edition of her The Story and Its Writer was as notable for its student appeal as it was for its quality and range. And to complement these stories, she introduced a lasting innovation: an array of the writers' own commentaries on the craft and traditions of the short story. In subsequent editions her sense of what works was confirmed as the book evolved into the most comprehensive, diverse-- and bestselling -- introduction to fiction anthology. Instructors rely on Ann Charters' ability to assemble an authoritative and teachable anthology, and anticipate each edition's selection of new writers and stories.

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Contents:

Part One: Stories
- Chinua Achebe / Civil Peace
- Sherman Alexie / The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
- Isabelle Allende / An Act of Vengeance
- Sherwood Anderson / Hands
- Margaret Atwood / Happy Endings
- Isaac Babel / My First Goose
- James Baldwin / Sonny's Blues
- Toni Cade Bambara / The Lesson
- Russell Banks / Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat
- Lynda Barry / San Francisco [graphic story]
- Donald Barthelme / At the Tolstoy Museum
- Ann Beattie / Janus
- Alison Bechdel / From Fun Home: "Old Father, Old Artificer" [graphic story]
- Ambrose Bierce / An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
- Roberto Bolano / Jim
- Jorge Luis Borges / The South
- Tadeusz Borowski / This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
- T. Coraghessan Boyle / Birnam Wood
- Ray Bradbury / August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains
- Albert Camus / The Guest
- Alejo Carpentier / Journey to the Seed
- Angela Carter / The Kiss
- Raymond Carver / Cathedral
- Raymond Carver / A Small, Good Thing
- Raymond Carver / What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
- Willa Cather / Paul's Case
- John Cheever / The Swimmer
- Anton Chekhov / The Darling
- Anton Chekhov / The Lady with the Little Dog
- Kate Chopin / Désirée's Baby
- Kate Chopin / The Story of an Hour
- Sandra Cisneros / Barbie-Q
- Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) / Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
- Joseph Conrad / Heart of Darkness
- Julio Cortázar / Axolotl
- Stephen Crane / The Open Boat
- Edwidge Danticat / Night Women
- Lydia Davis / Blind Date
- Junot Díaz / How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie
- Edith Maud Eaton (Sui Sin Far) / The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese
- Edith Maud Eaton (Sui Sin Far) / Her Chinese Husband
- Larry Eigner / Act
- Ralph Ellison / Battle Royal
- Nathan Englander / What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank
- Louise Erdrich / The Red Convertible
- William Faulkner / A Rose for Emily
- William Faulkner / That Evening Sun
- F. Scott Fitzgerald / Winter Dreams
- Janet Frame / Two Sheep
- Carlos Fuentes / Pain
- Mary Gaitskill / The Other Place
- Gabriel García Márquez / A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
- William Gass / A Fugue
- Dagoberto Gilb / Love in L.A.
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman / The Yellow Wallpaper
- Nikolai Gogol / The Overcoat
- Nathaniel Hawthorne / The Minister's Black Veil
- Nathaniel Hawthorne / Young Goodman Brown
- Ernest Hemingway / Hills Like White Elephants
- Zora Neale Hurston / The Gilded Six-Bits
- Zora Neale Hurston / Sweat
- Washington Irving / Rip van Winkle
- Shirley Jackson / The Lottery
- Henry James / The Real Thing
- Sarah Orne Jewett / A White Heron
- Ha Jin / Saboteur
- Denis Johnson / Work
- James Joyce / Araby
- James Joyce / The Dead
- Franz Kafka / A Hunger Artist
- Franz Kafka / The Metamorphosis
- Etgar Keret / Not Human Beings
- Jamaica Kincaid / Girl
- Nora Krug / Kamikaze [graphic story]
- Jhumpa Lahiri / Interpreter of Maladies
- D.H. Lawrence / Odour of Chrysanthemums
- D.H. Lawrence / The Rocking Horse Winner
- Ursula K. Le Guin / The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
- Doris Lessing / To Room 19
- Clarice Lispector / The Smallest Woman in the World
- Jack London / To Build a Fire
- Katherine Mansfield / Miss Brill
- Bobbie Ann Mason / Shiloh
- Guy de Maupassant / The Necklace
- Herman Melville / Bartleby, the Scrivener
- Steven Millhauser / Flying Carpets
- Lorrie Moore / Referential
- Alice Munro / Age of Faith
- Haruki Murakami / UFO in Kushiro
- Vladimir Nabokov / Signs and Symbols
- Santiago Nazarian / Fish Spine
- Joyce Carol Oates / The Lady with the Pet Dog
- Joyce Carol Oates / Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
- Tim O'Brien / The Things They Carried
- Flannery O'Connor / Everything That Rises Must Converge
- Flannery O'Connor / Good Country People
- Flannery O'Connor / A Good Man Is Hard to Find
- Frank O'Connor / Guests of the Nation
- Tillie Olsen / I Stand Here Ironing
- Daniel Orozco / Orientation
- Julie Otsuka / The Children
- Cynthia Ozick / The Shawl
- ZZ Packer / Brownies
- Grace Paley / A Conversation with My Father
- Grace Paley / Mother
- Octavio Paz / My Life with the Wave
- Edgar Allan Poe / The Cask of Amontillado
- Edgar Allan Poe / The Fall of the House of Usher
- Edgar Allan Poe / The Tell-Tale Heart
- Katherine Anne Porter / Maria Concepción
- W.S. Porter (O. Henry) / The Gift of the Magi
- Annie Proulx / Job History
- Jamie Quatro / 1.7 To Tennessee
- Philip Roth / The Conversion of the Jews
- Joe Sacco / From Palestine: Refugeeland [graphic story]
- Marjane Satrapi / From Persepolis: The Veil [graphic story]
- George Saunders / Sticks
- Saïd Sayrafiezadeh / A Brief Encounter with The Enemy
- Leslie Marmon Silko / Yellow Woman
- Art Spiegelman / Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History [graphic story]
- John Steinbeck / The Chrysanthemums
- Amy Tan / Two Kinds
- Leo Tolstoy / The Death of Ivan Ilych
- Jean Toomer / Blood-Burning Moon
- John Updike / A & P
- Luis Alberto Urrea / Father Returns from the Mountain
- Helen Maria Viramontes / Miss Clairol
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. / Harrison Bergeron
- Alice Walker / Everyday Use
- David Foster Wallace / Everything Is Green
- Eudora Welty / A Worn Path
- Edith Wharton / The Other Two
- John Edgar Wideman / newborn thrown in trash and dies
- William Carlos Williams / The Use of Force
- Tobias Wolff / Bullet in the Brain
- Tobias Wollf / Say Yes
- Virginia Woolf / Kew Gardens
- Richard Wright / The Man Who Was Almost a Man
Part Two: Commentaries
Part Three: Casebooks