Top 10 Short Stories, The - American Men

The top 10 short stories of all time written by American male authors. Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author? The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. From cities to vast open landscapes to the interiors of our fears the male authors of America dominate their stories with characters and narratives that are big, bold and beautiful. Stories begin and end as fully formed, as necessary as oxygen as beguiling as life itself. 1 - The Top 10 - The American Men - An Introduction 2 - Hands by Sherwood Anderson 3 - An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce 4 - The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell 5 - The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte 6 - Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne 7 - The Gift of the Magi by O Henry 8 - To Build a Fire by Jack London 9 - The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft 10 - Bartleby, The Scrivener by Herman Melville 11 - The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe