Fifty Great American Short Stories [Paperback]

A brilliant, far-reaching collection of stories from Washington Irving to John Updike.

The Classic Stories
Edgar Allan Poe’sMs. Found in a Bottle 
Bret Harte’sThe Outcasts of Poker Flat 
Sherwood Anderson’sDeath in the Woods
Stephen Vincent Benét’sBy the Waters of Babylon

The Great Writers
Melville
James
Dreiser
Faulkner
Hemingway
Steinbeck
McCullers

The Little-Known Masterpieces
Edith Wharton’sThe Dilettante
Finley Peter Dunne’sMr. Dooley on the Popularity of Fireman
Charles M. Flandrau’sA Dead Issue
James Reid Parker’sThe Archimandrite’s NieceMilton Crane was professor emeritus of English at George Washington University and of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. He was the author of several books and articles on English literature, as well as the editor of the Bantam anthology, 50 Great American Short Stories. He passed away in 1985.The Adventure of the German Student
by Washington Irving


ON A stormy night, in the tempestuous times of the French Revolution, a young German was returning to his lodgings, at a late hour, across the old part of Paris. The lightning gleamed, and the loud claps of thunder rattled through the lofty narrow streets—but I should first tell you something about this young German.

Gottfried Wolfgang was a young man of good family. He had studied for some time at Gottingen, but being of a visionary and enthusiastic character, he had wandered into those wild and speculative doctrines which have so often bewildered German students. His secluded life, his intense application, and the singular nature of his studies, had an effect on both mind and body. His health was impaired; his imagination diseased. He had been indulging in fanciful speculationlâ