The Best American Short Stories 1956 is a volume in The Best American Short Stories series edited by Martha Foley. The volume was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Background The series is considered one of the "best-known annual anthologies of short fiction""Short and Sweet" by Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly, 11/05/99, issue 511, page 73. and has anthologized more than 2,000 short stories, including works by some of the most famous writers in contemporary American literature."The Best American Short Stories of the Century," Publishers Weekly, 3/8/1999, volume 246, issue 10, page 47.
In particular, the Willa Cather Review wrote that The Best American Short Stories series "became a repository of values" for creative writing programs, college libraries, and literary magazines."'Long-Cellared Wine': 'Double Birthday,' Edward J. H. O'Brien, and the Best American Short Stories Series" by Timothy W. Bintrim and Scott Riner, Willa Cather Review, spring 2023, volume 64, issue 1, page 18. The Los Angeles Times, reflecting on the hundred-year anniversary of the series, noted that it eventually became an "institution" itself, often being taught in classrooms.
Short stories included Author Story SourceRoger Angell"In An Early Winter"The New YorkerMorris Brown"The Snow Owl"QuixoteGeorge R. Clay"We’re All Guests"New World WritingRobert M. Coates"In A Foreign City"The New YorkerWesley Ford Davis"The Undertow"The Pacific SpectatorWard Dorrance"The Devil on a Hot Afternoon"The Sewanee ReviewHarris Downey"The Hobo"The Virginia Quarterly ReviewWilliam Eastlake"The Quiet Chimneys"Harper's MagazineGeorge P. Elliot"Is He Dead?"EpochArthur Granit"Free The Canaries From Their Cages"CommentaryMarjorie Anaïs Housepian"How Levon Dai Was Surrendered To The Edemuses"The Paris ReviewShirley Jackson"One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts"Fantasy and Science FictionJack Kerouac"The Mexican Girl"The Paris ReviewFlannery O'Connor"Greenleaf"The Kenyon ReviewNathaniel LaMar"Creole Love Song"The Atlantic MonthlyAugusta Wallace Lyons"The First Flower"New Campus WritingRuth Branning Molloy"Twenty Below, At The End of a Lane"MademoiselleFlannery O'Connor"The Artificial Nigger"The Kenyon ReviewPhilip Roth"The Contest For Aaron Gold"EpochJohn Shepley"The Machine"QuixoteChristine Weston"Four Annas"The Virginia Quarterly ReviewSamuel Yellen"Reginald Pomfret Skelton"The Antioch Review
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