Pocket's Selection of the 43 Most Iconic Short Stories in the English Language

A Writer's Life

You've probably noticed that people love making lists. Top ten drummers of all time. Top 100 novels of the 20th century. The fifty most influential books of all time. The seventeen most important inventions of history.

The other day I saw a web page announcing, in their opinion, the 43 Most Iconic Short Stories in the English Language. The title caught my eye and, despite the fact that 43 is such an arbitrary number that I can't take it seriously, I had to see what they listed. I followed the link. As it turns out, out of the first dozen I'd read nearly all of them, and overall it really is an impressive list. I decided to share the first dozen or so here.

Disclaimer: I am a big fan of well-crafted short fiction. I used to acquire short story anthologies and collections like The Best Stories of 1981 or 1985 or whatever year I came across. Norton Anthologies helped guide me to new writers as well. 

The "43" list starts with 2 stories by Washington Irving: "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Irving knew how to tell a story and both of these are deservedly classics. (I will call this "One.")

Next we find Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart." Poe crafted so many engaging stories, I suspect that these selectors no doubt had a hard time selecting just one.

When I was in junior high I acquired an anthology of Edgar Allen Poe's works, both stories and poetry. "The Tell-Tale Heart" definitely made an impression on me. So many others did as well, including "The Mask of the Red Death," "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and "The Gold-Bug."

Four: "Bartelby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville. I read it as I went through my brief Melville phase. His epic novel Moby Dick is deservedly a classic. So I selected a couple follow-ups, including Billy Budd and this one. I read it but remember nothing, so evidently it didn't make the same impression.

Five: "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. First reading was in junior high. When I read it decades later, I tried to imagine writing this myself. It's an impressive and engaging story about a condemned Confederate soldier during the Civil War. Perfect pacing throughout, Bierce's story is a masterful work.

Six: "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Gilman. I've never read this one, so no comment, but as time permits I will seek it out.

Seven: "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James. Not sure why I didn't get into Henry James even though I know he is an important writer.

Eight: "The Lady with the Dog" is probably one of Chekhov's most well-known stories, but anyone who stops with this one will be missing a treasure trove of fine stories, some quite serious and others hilarious. One of my favorite all-time stories is "The Bet." A must read. My first Chekhov story was actually a one-act play titled, "On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco." It's hilarious.

Nine: "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs. Exemplifies the adage, "Be careful what you wish for." A powerful and chilling story.

Ten: O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi." This is another that we were introduced to through public school. To learn more about this prolific short story writer who was master of the twist ending, see A Brief Glance at the Life of William Sydney Porter, a.k.a. O Henry.

If you like short stories...

Eleven: "The Dead" by James Joyce. Read it. Didn't get into Joyce when I was reading his books in college. Was I too young to appreciate what they had to offer.

Twelve: "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka is classic. I first read it in a small volume called Continental Short Stories. One morning Gregor Samsa wakes up to find that he has become a cockroach (or something similar.) The absurd premise is carried out to the full measure. If interested, Haruki Murakami is written a sequel to this very strange tale that you might find interesting.

To find Thirteen through Forty-Three: You'll have to follow this link. I think it somewhat ironic that the title of this list says "in the English language." Chekhov and Kafka no doubt wrote in their native tongues, but since they have been translated I will over look that.

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When I was young, Hemingway's In Our Time inspired in me a desire to be a writer. The power of Heingway's prose prodded me to work hard at it. I was especially attracted to writing short fiction. My first short story collection is titled Unremembered Histories. If you have read it please leave a review at Amazon. If not, read the existing reviews and add it to your cart. 

Now All We Need Is A Title: Famous Books and How They Got Their Names

"A good title should be like a good metaphor; it should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious." 
--Walker Percy

When I saw this book on the shelf at the library I said to myself, "I gotta have it." The actual title is Now all we need is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way.

The author, Andre Bernard, shares stories about many of the famous books we've all either read or heard of. It is structured in alphabetical order by author, beginning with James Agee (Now Let Us Praise Famous Men) to Tom Wolfe (Bonfire of the Vanities).

Interspersed throughout the book are sidebars with lists like, Titles We're Glad Got Changed (eg. The Mute was changed to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter), and books with numbers in the title, or books with colors in their title, and books with families in the title, etc. 

If you're a reader of classic literature, you will almost certainly find this book a fun little diversion. Many powerful books had titles taken from famous poems. Dee Brown took the title of his Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee from the last line of a poem by Steven Vincent Benet. Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls is lifted from a poem by John Donne. And the title of O Henry's book of short stories Of Cabbages and Kings was lifted from some verse spoken by the walrus in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. (Learn more about the life of William Sydney Porter, a.k.a. O Henry.)

It's fascinating to read the variety of titles that got rejected by editors or sometimes the authors as their masterpiece stories headed toward publication. F. Scott Fitzgerald originally liked the title Trimalchio in West Egg as his title for what would ultimately become The Great Gatsby. Gold-hatted Gatsby and The High-bouncing Lover were other titles Maxwell Perkins, his publisher, rejected.  In reading this brief anecdote about Fitzgerald's most famous novel (but least profitable during his lifetime) I realized for the first time that all those suds-filled wild parties at Gatsby's place took place during prohibition. Hence, the Fitzgerald observation, "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." In other words, they don't live by the rules like the rest of us are required to.

Did you know that Joseph Heller's Catch-22 was originally going to be Catch-18? Simon & Schuster was notified by Doubleday that Leon Uris had a novel coming out called Mira 18. Since Uris was already a big name and Heller a newby, S&S caved and suggested Heller pick a different number. 

The Bible has been a source of titles for numerous famous books. William Faulkner extracted the title Absalom, Absalom from the Old Testament story of King David's son in II Samuel. Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land was taken from Exodus 2:21-22. It's the story of a human being who returns to earth after being raised by aliens.

Orwell's 1984, begun during WW2 and completed during the dawning of the Cold War, was originally titled The Last Man in Europe. The year selected was determined by reversing the numerals 48, the year this dark vision of the future was completed.

At this point I think you get the picture. 

EdNote: If you're an author, maybe you can pocket a few of these anecdotes to use in the talk you're planning for your next book signing.

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The Joy of Naming

The Name Game (Includes titles for a number of paintings in my 2009 at The Venue @ Mohaupt Block.)

The Big Read Does Gatsby

H.L. Mencken's 1925 Review of The Great Gatsby

O Henry's Famous Christmas Tale: The Gift of the Magi

A Nativity scene. Photo by Batang Latagaw on Unsplash

Tonight it's Christmas Eve, the night before Christmas. It's also a season of traditions. Finding and decorating the Christmas tree, wrapping presents, spending time with family--these are all part of the experience of Christmas for many. And in each home there may be found additional traditions such as kissing under the mistletoe or leaving hot chocolate and cookies for Santa.

In this home one of our traditions has been watching A Christmas Carol each year. It began when the kids were young. It was on television at that time and we recorded it on our VHS videotape machine. This version featured George C Scott in the role of Scrooge.

For years we watched that tape till one year our grown children were in California and we purchased the DVD so we could watch it there in the hotel room we were staying.

Another tradition amongst Christians is the creche, a small (or large when outdoors) presentation of the Nativity scene featuring the baby Jesus in a manger, surrounded by his mother Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, animals and the three kings, sometimes called the three wise men or Magi, from the East.

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

All this to say that even though churches sing "We Three Kings" at this time of year, it is almost a certainty that these men were not present that first night when shepherds were visited by angels and told of the holy birth. And they probably weren't even kings.

The story is found in Matthew 2 where it states that after Jesus was born, Magi came to Jerusalem from the East asking King Herod, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?"

To some this might seem a curious thing because the birth took place in Bethlehem. But when you think about it, these were foreign dignitaries of sorts, and they assumed (incorrectly) that the way to find the newborn king was to go through the proper political channels.

If you recall the Old Testament story of Naaman, a similar incident occurs. Naaman, commander of the Syrian armies, acquired leprosy and was devastated. His wife's young cleaning lady said that there was a God in Israel that could heal him.* He, too, followed proper political channels and went first to the king asking for help. The king was Ahab, who thought this move was a ploy by the powerful Syrian commander to pick a fight and wipe Israel off the map. (You can read the rest of the story in II Kings 5)

In the story of the Magi, King Herod was similarly disturbed, not by the Magi in this case, but in the threat to his reign by this newly born purported heir to the throne, according to the Scriptures. Privately and with devious intent, he shared that according to the prophet Micah the birth of this king was to have been in Bethlehem. He said, "Go find him and then report back to me."

They went, but did not report back, having been warned in a dream to not do so. When Herod discovered he'd been tricked, that they had gone home, he ordered that all boys two years old and under be killed. (Matthew 2:16-18) Our actions reveal our hearts.

The fact that Herod had all boys up to age two slaughtered seems to suggest that the Magi arrived sometime after the birth announcement to the shepherds. It may have been even a year later and Herod simply chose two years as the cutoff in order to be sure it was settled. God, however, had already given Joseph a heads up, also in a dream, and the family had moved to Egypt for a while, out of harm's way.

Wikipedia has this to say about the word Magi: The word magi is the plural of Latin magus, borrowed from Greek μάγος (magos), as used in the original Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew (in the plural: μάγοι, magoi). Greek magos itself is derived from Old Persian maguŝ from the Avestan magâunô, i.e., the religious caste into which Zoroaster was born (see Yasna 33.7: "ýâ sruyê parê magâunô" = "so I can be heard beyond Magi"). The term refers to the Persian priestly caste of Zoroastrianism. As part of their religion, these priests paid particular attention to the stars and gained an international reputation for astrology, which was at that time highly regarded as a science.

When I lived in Puerto Rico, the holiday season stretched from December 25 (the day of Messiah's birth) to January 6, designated Three Kings Day, as if there were indeed a separation of time, though not that much later.

The Matthew account also says nothing about the number of Magi. We apparently say three only because the gifts they brought were three in number--gold, frankincense and myrrh.

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Earlier this month I published A Brief Glance at the Life of William Sydney Porter, a.k.a. O Henry on Medium. While assembling that overview of his life I remembered several of his surprise twist ending stories that I enjoyed reading while growing up, including this one, "The Gift of the Magi" which was published in 1905.  

The title ties it to the Christmas season. Sentimental and sweet, it has a good message about sacrificial giving. Here's the beginning, with a link to the rest of the story below.


T h e  G i f t  o f  t h e  M a g i

ONE DOLLAR AND EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS. That was all. She had put it aside, one cent and then another and then another, in her careful buying of meat and other food. Della counted it three times. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was nothing to do but fall on the bed and cry. So Della did it.

While the lady of the home is slowly growing quieter, we can look at the home. Furnished rooms at a cost of $8 a week. There is little more to say about it. In the hall below was a letter-box too small to hold a letter. There was an electric bell, but it could not make a sound. Also there was a name beside the door: “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

When the name was placed there, Mr. James Dillingham Young was being paid $30 a week. Now, when he was being paid only $20 a week, the name seemed too long and important. It should perhaps have been “Mr. James D. Young.” But when Mr. James Dillingham Young entered the furnished rooms, his name became very short indeed. Mrs. James Dillingham Young put her arms warmly about him and called him “Jim.” You have already met her. She is Della.

Della finished her crying and cleaned the marks of it from her face. She stood by the window and looked out with no interest. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a gift. She had put aside as much as she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week is not much. Everything had cost more than she had expected. It always happened like that.

Only $ 1.87 to buy a gift for Jim. Her Jim.

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To finish, visit The Gift of the Magi.

Related Link
Here is an illuminating passage pertaining to the Magi from Chapter 8 of Alfred Edersheim's The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.

*Proof that you do not need to be in politics you influence the fate of nations

Three Words Too Many

For Father’s Day this year my son gave me a book called The World’s Shortest Stories, edited by Steve Moss. Evidently, being fascinated by the short short story form, Moss started a competition called Fifty-Five Fiction. That is, each story could only have 55 words.

The stories are nearly all mini-O. Henry type stories with clever twists and surprise endings. I mean, ever sentence of phrase, in some instances, is a sidewinder. The themes are as varied as story telling always is, but that 55 word constraint is more tightly adhered to than a highway speed limit. It’s the one hard and fast rule.

So, I pondered, and decided to count the words in one of my own short poems which I believed would make a great piece of Fifty-Five Fiction. And guess what? As short as it was, it is still three words too long! And when I tried to figure out which three words to cut, in order to submit it, I was stymied.

The book has been fun. I hope you’ll find my little 58 word piece here fun, too.

Bad Break
Agitation, face white, deep breath hold tight,

run down, look round, hope hard underground.

Ten seconds, ten years, dull moans, shrieked fears

wild thoughts, no tears, eyes wide, all ears.

Push, shove, hide fast, screen view whole past.

Breathe deep, make haste, taste death, bad taste.

Sky tear, bright light, no air, stomach tight.

Flame flash… all ash.

Sixty words including title.