What are the absolute best American short stories?

[LynnG in Hawaii]

We've already covered Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe in some depth.

I'm planning on Gift of the Magi and Ransom of Red Chief for sure.

Any other can't miss short stories for American Literature?

This is for my 11th grade daughter. We're doing mostly novels this year, but wanted to add in a representative list of American short stories as well. I would love to hear your "must read" suggestions.

Thanks in advance! :)

[Lori D.]

We're doing Amer. Lit this year, with a pretty heavy assortment of short stories. Here are ours (marked with **), plus some other ideas:


1800-1830
**- Rip Van Winkle (Washington Irving)
**- Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Washington Irving)


1830-1850
- Young Goodman Brown (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
- The Minister's Black Veil (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
- Rappaccini's Daughter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
**- Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allen Poe)
- The Black Cat (Edgar Allen Poe)
**- The Tell-Tale Heart (Edgar Allen Poe)


1850-1870
**- Billy Budd (Melville)
- Bartleby the Scrivner (Herman Melville)
- Outcasts of Poker Flats (Bret Harte)
**- Luck of Roaring Camp (Bret Harte)


1870-1890
- Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (Mark Twain)
-


1890-1900
**- Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Stephen Crane)
- The Monster (Stephen Crane)
- The Open Boat (Stephen Crane)
**- Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (Ambrose Bierce)


1900-1910
- To Build a Fire (Jack London)
**- Gift of the Magi (O. Henry)
**- Ransom of Red Chief (O. Henry)
- something by Edith Wharton??

1910-1920
**- The Most Dangerous Game (Robert Connell)
- something by Willa Cather??
- something by Booth Tarkington?? (maybe out of Penrod??)

1920-1930
- Bernice Bobs Her Hair (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
- Babylon Revisited (F. Scott Fitzgerald)


1930- 1950
- The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Ernest Hemingway)
**- The Old Man and the Sea (novella) (Ernest Hemingway)
- something by Zora Neale Hurston??
- something by William Faulkner ??
**- The Pearl (novella) (John Steinbeck)

1950 - 1970
**- There Will Come Soft Rains (Ray Bradbury)
- something out of "R is For Rocket" (short story collection) (Ray Bradbury)
**- A Good Man is Hard to Find (Flannery O'Connor)
**- Revelation (Flannery O'Connor)
**- The Lottery (Shirley Jackson)
- something by Chaim Potok??

1970-present
**- The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (Ursula LeGuin)

[teacalm]

[QUOTE**- The Lottery (Shirley Jackson)
[/QUOTE]

The short story The Lottery threw me off big time. This was an assigned short story reading in ds's Intro. to Lit. class with Laurel Tree Online and my first time reading it. I have to read it twice and then the third time to understand the ending. Is it really possible that a story like this can happen here in United States?

Superbly written story...

[BettyL]

Oh, I remember The Lottery! It was haunting! :001_unsure:

[LynnG in Hawaii]

Lori, that is an awesome list . . . thank you! :)

I think I'll add in several from your list. How does this sound:

(we've already done Washington Irving; I forgot to list that)

The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The Most Dangerous Game
To Build a Fire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
A Good Man is Hard to Find
The Lottery

By the way, the novels we are doing this year are (not counting our Washington Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne short stories):


Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Scarlet Letter
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Across Five Aprils
A Lantern in Her Hand
Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
Farewell to Arms
The Great Gatsby
The Grapes of Wrath
Fahrenheit 451

[Rebecca VA]

The Secret Sharer, by Joseph Conrad.

Oh, wait! This may not be American after all. Never mind...but it's still a good story.

[creekland]

I seriously can't remember if it was American or not, but Flowers for Algernon was one of my all-time favorites from my high school days. Daniel Keyes wrote it. It's both a short story and a full length book. I'm not sure which one I preferred, but it was the short story we read for school. The other I read on my own.

[shadowcat]

Hemingway, A Clean, Well Lighted Place (IMO perhaps the perfect short story. It's about 2 pages long and every word is perfect.).

Melville's Billy Budd is more of a novella than a short story, but its brilliant. If you want a second Melville that is shorter try Beneto Cereno.

Chopin, Story of an Hour

Take a look at Updike and Ozick as well for some modern offerings. I'm ashamed to admit I haven't read either.

And I agree with including The Lottery.

[Lori D.]

Look's like you've got a great Lit list! And here are two more short stories that you can read online -- the first is VERY short and very enjoyable:

"Thank You Ma'm" by Langston Hughes
http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/hughesthankyou.html

"The Man Without A Country" by Edward Everett Hale
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ManOut.shtml

[MyThreeSons]

of American Short Stories. We used it with Total Language Plus's unit.