The Best American Short Stories 1942 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 SourceNelson Algren"Biceps"The Southern ReviewLudwig Bemelmans"The Valet of the Splendide"The New YorkerSally Benson"5135 Kensington: August, 1903"The New YorkerKay Boyle"Nothing Ever Breaks Except the Heart"The New YorkerJack Y. Bryan"For Each of Us"American PrefacesWalter Van Tilburg Clark"The Portable Phonograph"Yale ReviewDavid Cornel DeJong"That Frozen Hour"Harper's BazaarBoyce Eakin"Prairies"The New Mexico Quarterly ReviewMorton Fineman"Tell Him I Waited"StoryRobert Gibbons"A Loaf of Bread"The New RepublicNancy Hale"Those Are As Brothers"MademoiselleMacKinlay Kantor"That Greek Dog"Saturday Evening PostEric Knight"Sam Small's Better Half"StoryMary Medearis"Death of a Country Doctor"StoryEdita Morris"Caput Mortuum"Harper's BazaarMary O' Hara"My Friend Flicka"StoryMargaret Rhodes Peattie"The Green Village"Saturday Evening PostWilliam Saroyan"The Hummingbird That Lived Through Winter"Harper's BazaarMichael Seide"Sacrifice of Isaac"American PrefacesBudd Wilson Schulberg"The Real Viennese Schmalz"EsquireIrwin Shaw"Search Through the Streets of the City"The New YorkerWallace Stegner"In the Twilight"MademoiselleJohn Steinbeck"How Edith McGillcuddy Met R. L. Stevenson"Harper's MagazineJesse Stuart"The Storm"The Household MagazinePeter Taylor"The Fancy Woman"The Southern ReviewDorothy Thomas"My Pigeon Pair"Harper's MagazineJames Thurber"You Could Look It Up"Saturday Evening PostJoan Vatsek"The Bees"StoryMary Lavin"At Sallygap"Atlantic MonthlyMarjorie Worthington"Hunger"Harper's Bazaar
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