Important Short Stories of the 20th Century: First Fifty Years

Individual short stories often just disappear.  Those that remain usually do so for two reasons:

(1) They get anthologized in text books and thus taught in classrooms

(2 They get discussed in articles and books

I have chosen the following list of approximately 200 stories based on those two criteria.  I will post a list of stories from the last half of the 20th century next week.  The dates reflect when the stories first appeared in book form. If you find errors or omissions, please let me know. I would appreciate it.

1900-1910

Cather, Willa          "Paul's Case" 1905

"Sculptor's Funeral" 1905

Forster, E. M.         "Other Side of the Hedge" 1904

"Road from Colonus" 1904

"Celestial Omnibus" 1911

Galsworthy, John     "Japanese Quince" 1910

Mann, Thomas        "Gladius Dei" 1902

"Infant Prodigy" 1903

"Tonio Kroger" 1903

"Death in Venice" 1912

"Railway Accident"

"Little Herr Friedman" 1903

Unamuno, Miguel de "Madness of Dr. Montarco" 1904

1910-1920

Akutagawa, Ryunosuke "Rashomon" 1915

Anderson, Sherwood Winesburg, Ohio 1919

Bunin, Ivan            "Gentleman from San Francisco" 1915

Dreiser, Theodore    "Lost Phoebe" 1916

Hesse, Hermann     "The Poet" 1913

Joyce, James         Dubliners 1914

Kafka, Franz          "Metamorphosis" 1915

"Judgment" 1916

"Country Doctor" 1919

Lawrence, D. H.      "Odor of Chrysanthemums" 1911

"Prussian Officer" 1913

"White Stockings" 1914

"Tickets, Please" 1919

Mansfield, Katherine  "Bliss" 1918

Pirandello, Luigi       "War" 1919

1920-1930

Akutagawa, Ryunosuke "In a Grove" 1922

Anderson, Sherwood "The Egg" 1921

"I Want to Know Why" 1921

"I'm a Fool" 1922

"Man Who Became a Woman" 1923

"Death in the Woods" 1926

Babel, Isaac           "How it Was Done in Odessa" 1923

"Crossing into Poland" 1924

"My First Goose" 1924

"Story of My Dovecote"

Callaghan, Morley    "Faithful Wife" 1929

Capek, Karel         "Last Judgment" 1929

Connell, Richard      "Most Dangerous Game" 1924

Coppard, A.E.        "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me" 1921

"Arabesque--the Mouse" 1921

"The Higgler" 1924

"Field of Mustard" 1926

Fitzgerald, F. Scott   "Diamond Big as the Ritz" 1922

"Absolution 1925

"The Rich Boy" 1926

"Winter Dreams" 1926

Glaspel, Susan       "Jury of Her Peers" 1927

Hemingway, Ernest   "Indian Camp" 1924

"Big, Two-Hearted River" 1925

"Soldier's Home" 1925

"Hills Like White Elephants" 1927

"In Another Country" 1927

"The Killers" 1927

Hurston, Zora Neale  "Spunk" 1925

"Sweat" 1926

Huxley, Aldous        "Young Archimedes" 1924

Kafka, Franz          "Hunger Artist" 1922

Kawabata, Yasunari  "Grasshopper and Cricket" 1924

Lagerkvist, Par        "Father and I" 1923

Lardner,Ring          "Haircut" 1925

"Golden Honeymoon" 1922

Lawrence, D. H.      "Blind Man" 1922

"Horse-Dealer's Daughter" 1922

"Woman who Rode Away" 1925

"Rocking-Horse Winner" 1926

"The Man Who Loved Islands" 1927

"Two Blue Birds" 1927

Mann, Thomas       "Disorder and Early Sorrow" 1926

Mansfield, Katherine  "Miss Brill" 1920

"Daughters of the Late Colonel" 1921

"Her First Ball" 1921

"The Fly" 1922

"Garden Party" 1922

"Marriage a al Mode" 1922

Maughm, Somerset   "Rain" 1921

"Outstation" 1924

Parker, Dorothy       "Big Blonde" 1929

Porter, Katherine Anne "Maria Concepcion" 1922

"Theft" 1929

Quirgo, Horacio       "Dead Man" 1920

Steele, Wilbur Daniel "Footfalls" 1920

Svevo, Italo            "Generous Wine" 1927

Toomer, Jean         "Fern" 1922

"Blood-Burning Moon" 1923

"Theater" 1923

Woolf, Virginia        "Haunted House" 1921

1930-1940

Aiken, Conrad        "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" 1932

Babel, Isaac          "In the Basement" 1930

"Guy de Maupassant" 1932

"Di Grasso" 1937

Beckett, Samuel      "Dante and the Lobster" 1932

Bontemps, Arna      "Summer Tragedy" 1933

Borges, Jorge Luis   "Pierre Menard, Author of Quixote" 1939

Bowen, Elizabeth     "Her Table Spread" 1930

"Tears, Idle Tears" 1937

Boyle, Kay            "Astronomer's Wife" 1936

"White Horses of Vienna"

Caldwell, Erskin       "Kneel to the Rising Sun" 1935

Callaghan, Morley    "Sick Call" 1932

Dinesen, Isak         "The Monkey" 1934

Faulkner, William     "Rose for Emily" 1930

"Dry September" 1930

"Spotted Horses" 1931

"That Evening Sun" 1931

"Barn Burning" 1939

Gordon, Carol ine     "Old Red" 1933

Greene, Graham     "The Basement Room" 1935

Hemingway, Ernest   "Clean, Well-Lighted Place" 1933

"Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber" 1936

Hughes, Langston    "On the Road" 1935

Lagerkvist, Par        "Children's Campaign" 1935

Landolfi, Tommaso   "Wedding Night" 1939

McCarthy, Mary       "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment" 1939

O'Connor, Frank      "Guests of the Nation" 1930

"First Confession" 1939

Porter, Katherine Anne" The Grave" 1935

"Noon Wine" 1936

"Jilting of Granny Weatherall" 1930

"Flowering Judas" 1930

Pritchett, V.S.         "Sense of Humor" 1937

Saroyan, William      "Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" 1934

Sartre, Jean Paul     "The Wall" 1937

Schorer, Mark         "Boy in the Summer Sun" 1937

Schultz, Bruno        "Street of Crocodiles" 1934

Schwartz, Delmore   "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" 1937

Shaw,         Irwin           "Girls in their Summer Dresses" 1939

Steele, Wilburn Daniel" How Beautiful with Shoes" 1932

Steinbeck, John       "The Snake" 1936

"Chrysanthemums" 1938

"Flight" 1938

Unamuno Miguel      "St. Emmanuel the Good, Martyr" 1933

Welty, Eudora                "Death of a Traveling Salesman" 1936

"A Piece of News" 1937

"Petrified Man" 1939

Williams, William Carlos" Use of Force" 1938

Wolfe, Thomas       "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn" 1939

Fitzgerald, F. Scott   "Babylon Revisited" 1930

Wright, Richard       "Big Boy Leaves Home" 1936

"Bright and Morning Star" 1937

1940-1950

Borges, Jorge Luis   "Circular Ruins" 1940

"Tlon, Ugbar, Orbis, Tertius" 1940

"Garden of Forking Paths" 1941

"Lottery in Babylon" 1941

"Library of Babel" 1941

"Funes the Memorious" 1944

Bowen, Elizabeth     "Demon Lover" 1940

"Happy Autumn Fields" 1944

"Queer Heart" 1941

Bowles, Paul          "The Scorpion" 1945

"Distant Episode" 1947

Capote, Truman      "Tree of Night" 1943

"Miriam" 1945

Cheever, John        "Enormous Radio" 1947

Clarke, Walter van Tilburg "Portable Phonograph" 1941

"The Wind and the Snow of Winter" 1944

Dinesen, Isak         "Sailor-Boy's Tale" 1942

"Sorrow Acre" 1942

"Blue Jar" 1922

Ellison, Ralph         "King of the Bingo Game" 1944

"Flying Home" 1944

Gordimer, Nadine     "Train from Rhodesia" 1947

Greene, Graham     "Across the Bridge" 1949

"Hint of an Explanation" 1949

Jackson, Shirley      "The Lottery" 1948

Lavin,  Mary           "A Wet Day" 1944

"The Will" 1944

McCullers, Carson    "Tree, Rock, Cloud" 1942

Nabokov, Vladimir    "That in Aleppo Once" 1943

                     "Signs and Symbols" 1948

O'Connor, Frank      "Judas" 1947

"Drunkard" 1948

O'Faolain, Sean      "Man Who Invented Sin" 1944

"Innocence" 1946

O'Flaherty, Liam      "Two Lovely Beasts" 1946

Powers, J. F.         "Lions, Harts, and Leaping Does" 1943

"Prince of Darkness" 1946

"The Forks" 1947

"Valiant Woman" 1947

Pritchett, V.S.        "Saint" 1940

Salinger, J. D.        "Perfect Day for Bananafish" 1948

"Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut" 1948

Saroyan,William       "Summer of Beautiful White Horse" 1940

Shaw, Irwin           "Act of Faith" 1946

Singer, I.B.           "Spinoza of Market Street" 1944

"Gimpel the Fool" 1957

Stafford, Jean         "Interior Castle" 1947

Stegner, Wallace     "Butcher Bird" 1940

Taylor, Peter          "Fancy Woman" 1940

Trilling, Lionel         "Of This Time, Of That Place" 1943

Warren, Robert Penn"Blackberry Winter" 1946

Welty, Eudora                "Keela, the Outcast Indian Maiden" 1940

"A Visit of Charity" 1941

"Why I Live at the PO" 1941

"Worn Path" 1941

"Powerhouse" 1941

White, E. B.           "Second Tree from the Corner" 1947

Wright, Richard       "Man Who Was Almost a Man" 1940