Best Short Stories

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.1

Word count: 257K words
Chapters: 26

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Best Short Stories by Thomas L. MassonAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PN: Language and Literatures: Literature: General, Criticism, Collections, Release Date: Apr 20, 2005

Editor's review

This edition of Best Short Stories, compiled by Thomas L. Masson and released as an electronic text by Project Gutenberg, is an anthology of English-language short fiction. Its value lies in presenting, through a selection, the tastes of short fiction from a particular period: compact in length and complete in plot, it is well suited to observing how the short story as a genre achieves its setup, development, turn, and resolution within limited space. As a public-domain anthology it is more a window than a definitive edition, letting readers encounter a group of English-language short-story writers and narrative conventions that are less often mentioned today. In terms of reading situations, it suits fragmented time such as commutes or bedtime, one story per sitting, with no need to proceed in order; it also suits English learners practicing narrative texts. Note that the anthology includes no detailed introduction or author background, so readers who wish to understand a particular story in depth will need to supplement the material themselves.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers who want to read short stories in fragmented time
English learners practicing the reading of narrative texts
Readers interested in English short-story anthologies and the evolution of the genre
People who need short-story material for reading aloud or adaptation practice

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting contemporary new work or a complete collection of well-known classics
Beginners who need detailed notes and introductions
Readers who prefer long, continuous narratives and dislike the jumps of short stories

Reading tips

Read one or two stories a day, and after each, retell the plot and turning point in two or three sentences.
Pick the story you like most, look up the author and the year of writing, supply the background, and read it again.
Place the openings and endings of different stories side by side to observe the structural habits of short fiction.
English learners can read aloud first and then look up new words, to avoid word-by-word translation breaking the feel of the language.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Which writers' works does this book collect?

The information only states that it was compiled by Thomas L. Masson and is a short-story anthology; it does not list the specific pieces or the names of the authors. For the specific contents, consult the table of contents in the e-book text; do not guess from the title.

Is it suitable for learning English?

The text consists of English short stories of moderate length and complete narrative, and can serve as extensive-reading material. But the anthology has no notes, and the older expressions and vocabulary require your own dictionary; it is advisable to focus on understanding the plot, with close reading as a supplement.

Do I need to read it in order from beginning to end?

No. The stories in a short-story anthology are relatively independent; you can skip around according to interest, or arrange your reading pace by length, deciding whether to continue after finishing each story.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.