Changing currents and maturing forms: 1860-1900. The notorious jumping frog of Calaveras County / Mark Twain - - The outcasts of Poker Flat / Bret Harte -- Editha / William Dean Howells -- The coup de grace / Ambrose Bierce -- "Europe" / Henry James -- The real thing / Henry James -- The storm / Kate Chopin -- The New England nun / Mary E. Wilkins Freeman -- The passing of Grandison / Charles Chesnutt -- The return of a private / Hamlin Garland -- The bride comes to Yellow Sky / Stephen Crane -- The open boat / Stephen Crane.

New directions and the absurd: 1940 to the present. Livvie / Eudora Welty -- A man in the house / Cyrus Colter -- The swimmer / John cheever -- The girls in the summer dresses / Irwin Shaw -- The magic barrel / Bernard Malamud -- What you hear from 'em? / Peter Taylor -- Good country people / Flannery O'Connor -- Life-story / John Barth -- Margins / Donald Barthelme -- The brother / Robert Coover -- A & P / John Updike -- The sky is gray / Ernest J. Gaines -- The conversions of the Jews / Phillip Roth -- Where are you going, where have you been? / Joyce Carol Oates -- A gir's story / Toni Cade Bambara.

Romanticism and the beginnings: 1800-1868. Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving -- Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Rappaccini's daughter / Nathaniel Hawthorne - - The cask of Amontillado / Edgar Allan Poe -- The tell- tale heart / Edgar Allan Poe -- The big bear of Arkansas / Thomas Bangs Thorpe -- Bartleby, the Scrivener / Herman Melville.

Tradition, revolt, and experimentation: 1900-1940. A Madison Square Arabian night / O. Henry -- Roman Fever / Edith Wharton -- Paul's case / Willa Cather -- Death in the woods / Sherwood Anderson -- The love nest / Ring Lardner -- The Grave / Katherine Anne Porter -- The catbird seat / James Thurber -- Babylon revisited / F. Scott Fitzgerald -- A rose for Emily / William Faulkner - - Was / William Faulkner -- A clean, well-lighted place / Ernest Hemingway -- Flight / John Steinbeck -- Thank you, ma'm / Langston Hughes.