These short stories are great! Read To Build a Fire, Death In The Woods, Mr Prebble Geets Rid of His Wife, and Cluney Mc Farrar's Hardtack! Great reading. Gripping stories! Great characters! and wonderful locales! A true pleasure to read.

This is the best collection of the best stories ever written in America. It covers 200 years of fiction including undeniable classics such as "Young Goodman Brown," "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," and "Soldiers of the Republic," and relatively unknown masterpieces such as "A Dead Issue," by Charles Macomb Flandrau, and "The Meeting Place," by Oliver LaFarge. Writers represented include the well-known and widely-honered (Washington Irving, Jack London, John Steinbeck) and the less-celebrated (Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Robert M. Coates, Seymour Friedgood). Everyone, no matter his or her taste, will find twenty or more of these stories to be among the best they have ever read. Finally, the reader may discover within this volume the doorway to a writer, new to him or her, whose work becomes a lifelong passion.

I've had my copy since jr high school...it's about time to buy a new one

The best of the best are in this collection of short stories.

I heartily enjoyed this gem of a book which offers a good sampling of the American short story. I had forgotten how delightful this genre is--this book has helped fill my need for good literature with its thoughtfully selected stories. Those who have gotten away from the short story may enjoy the fifty offerings in this nice book. Give it a try!