In your opinion, what author writes the best short stories?

**Edited:

Joyce Carol Oates is amazing in the short story front. A-m-a-z-i-n-g. Every word matters, it's really wonderful to read a masterful short story, there is such a difference between the few who do it well, and everyone else, you know? That's why I've always despised the writing advice - "You should concentrate on mastering the short story before moving to novels." If you follow that advice to the letter you'll never get around to attempting a novel!! (Her most famous one is "Where are you going, where have you been?" which is my most favorite loss of innocence story ever.)

Another really good short story writer, and this is personal opinion, is Chuck Palahniuk. Oddly enough, this is usually what I bash him about too. But when taken for what they are his shorts are very, very good. I enjoy them a lot.

Lawrence Block is really good at it too. They're fun to read. I just checked, and there are quite a few Bernie Rhodenbarr shorts online.

I had to ask Reader what this one was because I couldn't remember the title or author! (Thanks, Reader!) Don't be mislead, though, it's easily the best short story I've ever read. I first read it during a crazy literature filled semester and the names and titles of everything are all jumbled up. The plot is basically that a woman with a faint heart gets word that her husband died in a train wreck, she goes and sits in a chair in her room looking out a westward facing window and you realize that she's actually relieved he's dead. Of course, then she goes downstairs and her husband walks in and she dies of a heart attack. It is just amazing how necessary every single line is. This is a very, very short story, and every single thing the author included matters. It's an amazing piece called "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin.

Honorable mention for best short story I've ever read goes to Raymond Chandler's "Red Wind." For a lot of the same reasons as above, plus I just really like the genre it spawned. Very good read.

Good question.

Good question. There are so many authors who have written wonderful short stories that it is difficult to narrow it down.

O. Henry was one of the best, in my opinion. He was the master of the clever twist. The Cop and the Anthem had a really great one; The Ransom of Red Chief a funny one.

Most have already pointed out Edgar Allan Poe. He definitely belongs in the group.

Charles Dickens wrote some really clever short stories which are among my favorites. The Signal-Man, The Trial for Murder, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain are all wonderful.

Washington Irving wrote some classic short stories, too. I particularly loved his The Mutability of Literature. http://www.online-literature.com/irving/geoffrey_c...

There are so many other excellent writers of short stories like Guy de Maupassant, W. Somerset Maugham, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Shirley Jackson, Roald Dahl, etc. If I were required to pick only one, I think I'd go with O. Henry, but it's a tough call even for one who enjoys a full-length book more than a short story. (*I don't think I have one specific favorite short story.)

***Edit: I just remembered another good one: An Occurrence at Owl Creek by Ambrose Bierce. http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/owlcrk.html

I don't read a ton of short stories, but I love the ones by Edgar Allen Poe. Most of the ones I've read are dark and mysterious, and I can never tell what's going to happen. The Tell-Tale Heart is my favorite of his so far.

My favorite short story, by any author, is By The Waters of Babylon by Stephen Vincent Benet. At first I didn't understand it at all. It sounded like some twisted fantasy. But it's actually about post-apocalyptic New York, after an atomic bomb destroyed almost everybody. The people that are left believe pre-apocalyptic people to be gods, and New York is the forbidden city of the gods. It's kind of hard to explain, but the actual story was a lot better than my description.

Edgar Allen Poe and Neil Gaiman.

Gaiman has written some deliciously chilling short stories including "Feeders and Eaters" and one I will never forget "Other People" which portrays a hell of truly horrific proportions. The one line I will never forget "“Time is fluid here,” said the demon."

Poe also is great. The Tell Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher portray madness beautifully. He has a lot of lesser known short stories which are in no way any less well written. Poe is truly magnificent when it comes to short stories.

Well, it's got to be Poe for this one, for his sheer mastery of the form. I love Poe. But my favorite short story right now is actually Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener.

Oh, and I absolutely must acknowledge the awesomeness of Hawthorne (gorgeous writing), O. Henry (perfect plots), and Bradbury (moving and evocative).

Some more favorites, based on the works in The Oxford Book of English Short Stories: Anthony Trollope, Arthur Morrison, Saki (I've also read others of his), Virginia Woolf, and T. H. White.

I like Roald Dahl's short stories. Most of them are really creepy, but Dahl is a great writer and his stories are excellent. My favorite may be "The Landlady", though I've no idea why.

Poe is the master of the short story. I think I like "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado" best.

I really like O. Henry's things, too. "After Twenty Years" and "Heart of the West" are great. I must say the only one I didn't like was "The Tale of Red Cheif" if only because the characters were really dumb people.

I don't usually read a lot of sci-fi, but I do like Ray Bradbury's; "There Will Come Soft Rains" is beautiful (I like that poem, too) and "A Sound of Thunder" scared me, but I liked it. On that same note, "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut touched my heart in a crazy, scare-me-to-death way; I wrote an essay on that one.

Maybe I have some sort of mental problem. All these stories are either creepy, terrifying, or sad.

Edgar Allen Poe

Oooo, this is a toughie. I'm not sure I could pick just one author. But it's a great question! Thanks for trying to make this a better place in cyberspace!

When it comes to Poe, I wish more people would read his science fiction and tall tale sorts of stories instead of always going with the horror. True, they are justly celebrated, but there's so much that gets overlooked.

Most surveys of authors and critics of the best short story writers of the past 100 years or so rate James Joyce, Anton Chekhov, and Ernest Hemingway highest. Although I don't have a problem with that, they are not, for whatever reason, as near and dear to my heart as many others.

Franz Kafka's stories are absolutely essential even if, like Edmund Wilson, you regard them as vastly overrated, a recipe for self-destruction. Robert Walser might also be viewed in this light, but of course he is nowhere near the iconic status of Kafka, whose influence stretches so wide and so far. Greek and Roman myths are also absolute musts, and it would serve anyone well to read the stories of other mythologies and religious traditions, from Native American to Hindu, Persian, African, etc.

So many of the best short stories of the past 100 years have come from science fiction. I try to look for the stories that have good literary quality and some actual exploration of psychology rather than those that try to milk a "high concept" with disregard for everything else. That's one of the reasons why Philip K. Dick doesn't make the list. Some of his prose is just atrocious. He's still important, though.

Dead (see below for more):

Guy de Maupassant (one of the all-time greats)

B. Traven (very unjustly neglected)

Thomas Mann (incredibly important short stories)

Nikolai Gogol (and heck, those other big Russians, too)

Virginia Woolf

Donald Barthelme (many are absolutely amazing, e.g., "The Photograph"; try to find the actual books of stories instead of anthologies like 40 Stories and 60 Stories)

Henry James (many of his stories are overlooked in the haste to assign the boring "Daisy Miller"; I hope you've read the long story/novella "The Turn of the Screw," which is essential)

Katherine Anne Porter

Carson McCullers

Sherwood Anderson (Winesburg, Ohio is a masterpiece of semi-interconnected stories; his other work is also good)

D. H. Lawrence

Herman Melville (absolutely essential short fiction)

Nathaniel Hawthorne (ditto)

Thomas Disch (one of the greatest of science fiction writers, period; he died this year)

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Willa Cather

Oscar Wilde (surprise!)

Mark Twain

Tennessee Williams (surprise!)

Jorge Luis Borges (can sometimes be tiresome; Barthelme often goes to the same places with more brio; still, another essential writer who's been extremely influential)

Living:

Alice Munro (IMHO, she's the quintessential contemporary short story writer.)

J. G. Ballard (He's writing mostly novels nowadays.)

William Trevor

Harlan Ellison (But he hasn't really written in a while.)

John Varley

J. D. Salinger (for what it's worth; great to read when young)

Samuel R. Delany

Joanna Russ

My favorite short story of all time is probably "Gleepsite" by Joanna Russ. It's a very mysterious sci fi story that repays multiple readings. Another favorite is "The Shawl" by Cynthia Ozick. I'm not sure there is a more perfectly written short story, and it's unforgettable. But there are so many good ones!

A few of my favorite single volumes:

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories -- Yasunari Kawabata

Twice-Told Tales -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

War Fever -- J. G. Ballard

The Life to Come and Other Stories -- E. M. Forster

The Simple Stories -- Langston Hughes (This is kind of cheating, since they fill more than one volume, but....)

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I can't wait to see what others say.... Questions like this can always elicit such interesting answers and point us in new directions.... Thanks!

ANY O'Henry

And Edgar Allen Poe

But I suppose that is incredibly cliché

Bravo for trying to save B&A from Twi-cancer!

Oh yeah, I didn't list this author but I especially like

Adventure of the Devil's Foot by Arthur Conan Doyle

and Young Goodman Brown by nathaniel Hawthorne

Edgar Allen Poe is pretty awesome. I really like The Fall of the House of Usher--it has interesting symbolism and it gives me the chills!

I also like Ray Bradbury. I read a short story by him last year called All Summer in a Day and I really thought it was interesting. He's one of my favorite science fiction authors.

EDIT: Kelsey-- There Will Come Soft Rains is one of my favorite poems too! I just love it.