 First edition | |
| Author | Various |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary |
| Published | 1949 (Simon & Schuster) |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 480 pp |
| OCLC | 768510 |
| LC Class | PZ1. F46654 |
55 Short Stories from the New Yorker is a literary anthology of short fiction first published in The New Yorker magazine from the years 1940 through 1949.
Front Cover
Although the magazine debuted in February 1925 (so that its 25th anniversary was in 1950), this 1949 book's subtitle reads, "A twenty-fifth anniversary volume of stories that have appeared in the magazine during the last decade." As with the annual anniversary issue of the eponymous magazine, the cover depicts Eustace Tilley with his monocle, in the classic iconograph.
The cover subtitles also include "1940 to 1950," but the copyright date of 1949 suggests that material from 1950, and possibly the latter part of 1949, was not included; individual years listed after "copyright" also recite each of the years in the 1940s, but not 1950.
Authors
One story from each of 55 different authors is included. The authors (and some selected story titles) are
- Roger Angell
- S. N. Behrman
- Ludwig Bemelmans
- Sally Benson
- Isabel Bolton
- Kay Boyle
- Bessie Breuer
- Hortense Calisher
- John Cheever ("The Enormous Radio")
- Robert M. Coates
- John Collier
- Rhys Davies
- Robert Gorham Davis
- Daniel Fuchs
- Wolcott Gibbs
- Brendan Gill
- Emily Hahn
- Nancy Hale
- Shirley Jackson ("The Lottery")
- Christopher La Farge
- Oliver La Farge
- A. J. Liebling
- Victoria Lincoln
- Russell Maloney
- James A. Maxwell
- William Maxwell
- Mary McCarthy
- Carson McCullers
- Robert McLaughlin
- John McNulty
- Vladimir Nabokov ("Colette")
- Edward Newhouse
- Frank O'Connor
- John O'Hara
- Mollie Panter-Downes
- James Reid Parker
- Elizabeth Parsons
- Frances Gray Patton
- Astrid Peters
- John Powell
- Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
- John Andrews Rice
- J. D. Salinger ("A Perfect Day for Bananafish")
- Mark Schorer
- Irwin Shaw
- Jean Stafford
- Peter Taylor
- James Thurber ("The Catbird Seat")
- Niccolò Tucci
- Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Jerome Weidman
- Jessamyn West
- Christine Weston
- E. B. White
- Wendell Wilcox
Editorial comment
In the short Foreword, the editors state that "ome notable stories are missing" for purposes of balance, and also that "parody, nonsense, and casual essays" have been excluded as "outside the scope of this book." There is a conventional table of contents and an index lists each story alphabetically by its author's last name. There is no other content, except the stories themselves.
Binding
The third paperback printing is bound in matte paper, and is 5.25 in × 8 in (133 mm × 203 mm) in size, approximately the size of a trade paperback in 2006.
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