The Best American Short Stories 1954 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 AuthorStorySourceGeoffrey Bush"A Great Reckoning In a Little Room"The Atlantic MonthlyRichard Clay"A Beautiful Night For Orion"The Hudson ReviewBenjamin Demott"The Sense That In The Scene Delights"Partisan ReviewWard Dorrance"A Stop on the Way to Texas"The Atlantic MonthlyLegarde S. Doughty"The Firebird"Prairie SchoonerElizabeth Enright"Apple Seed and Apple Thorn"MademoiselleSteve Frazee"My Brother Down There"Ellery Queen Mystery MagazineIvan Gold"A Change of Air"New World WritingPriscilla Heath"Farewell, Sweet Love"Western ReviewAnne Herbert"The House On The Esplanade"Queen's QuarterlyFrank Holwerda"Char On Raven's Bench"AccentRandall Jarrell"Gertrude and Sidney"The Sewanee ReviewAlmet Jenks"No Way Down"The Saturday Evening PostGeorge Loveridge"The Latter End"The Yale ReviewFrances Gray Patton"The Game"The New YorkerRobert Payne"The Red Mountain"Harper's MagazineRosanne Smith Robinson"The Mango Tree"Harper's BazaarIrwin Shaw"In The French Style"The New YorkerJean Stafford"The Shorn Lamb"The New YorkerKathrine Taylor"The Pale Green Fishes"Woman's DayB. Traven"The Third Guest"FantasticChristine Weston"The Man In Gray"The Virginia Quarterly ReviewIra Wolfert"The Indomitable Blue"EsquireVurrell Yentzen"The Rock"Quarto
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