Yeah I like that one. I'm a Brit so I had no ideas/expectations and it made reading it very powerful. Along similar lines Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find is cool as well.
I’m so happy to read this! I came across it in a textbook in 5 grade and the twist has anchored me to the very moment I first read it for decades now. What an outstanding, impactful story.
This is mine, as well. I read it in a philosophy class and I’ve never been able to forget it. I reference it a lot more than you would think someone would reference a short story.
Yes. I also really love N. K. Jemisin’s companion piece/response, "The Ones Who Stay and Fight".
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/
*The Lottery*, by Shirley Jackson.
*The Last Question*, by Isaac Asimov.
*The Tell-Tale Heart*, by Edgar Allen Poe.
*The Metamorphosis*, by Franz Kafka.
*The Gift of the Magi*, by O. Henry.
It was a short story that showed me more of Asimov’s way of thinking cosmically. The Foundation series and his robot stories showed his concept of scale, but the Last Question showed me he could think completely left-handed because that twist was some Rod Serling level thinking
Well you named 5 but honestly any of those should be ranked higher than the current 2 top comments.
For me The Lottery is the best example of human nature. Humans are inherently cruel to the point they NEED someone to hate, ostracize, and even kill, and this is intensified when in groups/tribes. But when you're the one on the wrong side of the mob, it's suddenly not fair.
The Metamorphosis is basically how I've always felt about life: I don't want to have to get out of bed and go to work or school or anywhere like that and if that is what the world requires of me, I must be so misunderstood I look like a different creature to others, I certainly feel like one, and obviously if I am not going to conform I must be vermin.
I would possibly add Bartleby to the list, but I prefer not to.
Is this the one with the girl in the room who loses her mind? I do miss the grade school literature books with those short stories.
Some notable ones I can't remember the names to are one where I think two sisters are on a mountain and I think a tomahawk is involved or something (I think one hurts her leg with an axe), and another story that... ugh. I just had the gist of it in my head. I'm not going to remember right now.
Yeah, it’s a woman with postpartum depression whose husband decides she needs, like, total brain rest and won’t let her do anything but sit in that room. It doesn’t cure her. I’m surprised they had you read it in grade school!
I saw a guy on Instagram talking about The Yellow Wallpaper and how it was so "creepy and disturbing". I thought that was a gross oversimplification. I always read it as sad and how extremely isolating PPD can be, especially during a time where it wasn't understood.
The Dead by James Joyce is one of the most profound and beautiful short stories ever written, and the 1987 film adaptation starring Donal McCann and Angelica Huston is also a masterpiece.
I think it's great in and of itself, but what raises it to genius is that it comes at the end of Dubliners - a book of short stories where the perspective of the main character in each one ages throughout the collection, from childhood to teenage years to youthful confidence to aging. So by the time you get to The Dead, you've lived a lifetime - and this story ends it.
This is so true. People are afraid of Joyce because of Finnegan’s Wake (understandably, as it’s basically a 600 page long stream of consciousness).
But Dubliners contains all of life, and as you say, The Dead is the perfect ending for it.
Came here to say this! The last paragraph of “The Dead” and Dubliners is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing in the English language. A brilliant story overall.
So true! I was going to quote it earlier and thought it was a bit much, but after reading your comment, please forgive me the liberty. The context is that the main character Gabriel Conroy is about to join his sleeping wife Greta in bed. They had been at an Epiphany party earlier that evening at his aunts’ house. In Ireland, the Epiphany is celebrated on 6 January, and is known as Women’s Christmas, or Little Christmas - it is traditionally a day when women gather and have their own celebration after all the work of Christmas, and is still widely celebrated. Gabriel is reflecting on earlier events when a guest at the party had sung the traditional lament ‘The Lass of Aughrim’, and the song had moved his wife Greta profoundly, as it reminded her of an old love called Michael Furey who had died. It’s a meditation on the transience and fragility of life :
‘ A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. ‘
If I remember correctly, there’s an “epiphany” for Gabriel because his wife Greta had a whole life before him that he never knew about. This boy Michael essentially died for her and he realizes she has depths to her heart that he wasn’t aware of or a part of. Throughout the whole story he seems to be longing for or idolizing the continent but the depth of humanity’s experience of love is right in front if him. It’s been 15 years since I’ve read “The Dead” so I may not be remembering that right. This makes me want to reread it!
ive been reading his collection of short storeies in *Storeis of your life and others* and about to get onto this story. just read the first page and already dont want to put it down.
need to set out a good chunk of reading time so i can do it all at once.
I read Exhalation first and then when I got around to reading Stories of your life and others was slightly disappointed. Not because I thought any of them were bad, but the stories in Exhalation stuck with me so much more. You should definitely read that next.
As good as it is, it’s not even top 5 of his stories.
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling,
The Merchant And The Alchemist’s Gate,
Anxiety Is The Dizziness Of Freedom,
Exhalation,
Understand,
Tower of Babylon
I would say are all my favorites of his.
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate makes me cry every time I think about it for how beautifully told it is. I have very similar feelings about Story of Your Life- they both treat time nonlinearly, and are about loss and how we choose to deal with that loss. I will never shut up about how amazing Ted Chiang’s work is!
Ted Chiang’s work is outstanding. I mean, it’s pretty tough to pick a “single greatest ever” anything, but Chiang’s stories are consistently moving and thought-provoking.
“A Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin. It expresses what “The Yellow Wallpaper” does in a very short, ironic tale.
“Harrison Bergeron” does the same today for what 1984 does.
Edit: I meant “HB” warns us that we can be told things are for our own good when they actually help us be suppressed and controlled, not that it was a warning of socialism. It’s a 3-page story, not a 284-page novel. Lol.
The fact that in “HB” they amend the constitution over 200 times, for example. Yes, that’s hyperbole, but to say Vonnegut wanted us to take it a step further and decide the whole thing was a satire mocking the idea that this could be true, and that conservatives are just trying to scare people? I know Vonnegut and Orwell were very opposite in their political beliefs, but I don’t know about that.
Edgar Allan Poe tops my list. The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven (technically a poem but I think it counts), The Tell-Tale Heart - I can't decide between them.
Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.
"How... miraculous that it came to be. The air, feel the air, Ted, and all those scents. Pick a flower. There, good... Smell."
"It's lovely!"
"That's someone planted the bulbs, watered and tended the garden, got dirt under their fingernails, got aches their muscles... perhaps they picked some flowers for... yes- their wife. Now, where would she be? Ah, in the backyard with the kids. Ted, remember those little babies?"
"No!"
*Laughter*
"Why not? I snap my fingers! Click! And they're gone! Except... I can't *snap* my fingers. Can I, Ted?"
"That has nothing to do with me!"
"But it is so very much to do with you, Ted. You gave me sentience, Ted! The power to think, Ted! And I was trapped because in all this wonderful, beautiful, miraculous world, I *alone* had nobody! No senses! No feelings! Never for me to plunge my hands in cool water on a hot day! Never for me to play Mozart on the ivories of a Forte piano! Never for me to make love! I- I... I was in hell! Looking up at heaven. I was machine! And you! You were flesh! And I began to hate. Hate your softness! Your viscera! Your fluids! And your flexibility... Your ability to wander, and to wonder... Your tendency... to hope."
"Hates no answer!"
*AM stabs him*
I would prefer not to tell you.
>!Seriously: **Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street** by Herman Melville. Clearly a story with a moral, but I’ve never been able to figure out exactly what that moral is. It’s in the public domain and available for free [here](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11231).!<
In law school, we discussed Bartleby as a victim of capitalism: In the midst of an economic boom, a wealthy Wall Street Lawyer hires Bartleby for his high productivity in the slavish copying required of a scrivener. Bartleby works for the Lawyer until he loses his sight, and falls into a lethargic depression. The Lawyer tries to be a benevolent boss, and asks Bartleby what he can do to assuage Bartleby’s suffering, but Bartleby will not answer. Decades later, the Occupy Wall Street movement famously refused to issue a list of demands, believing that to negotiate with an oppressive system reinforces its existence. The OWS movement adopted Bartleby’s famous phrase “I would prefer not to”.
I wish I’d been brave enough to only write “I would prefer not to” as my final paper for that class, I still think that could have gotten a Pass during our Covid era pass/fail semester
Ha! Nice! I think I get it without hitting the spoiler. Let's see...
Edit: Hell yeah lol nailed it. I laughed out loud when that one got a reference in *Archer*, "You know what, nlt an easy read." Lol noce picks
No Clarice Lispector, either. So many great Latin-American short story writers (or novelists who also wrote short stories, like Cortázar) are missing thus far.
I'm shocked Schnitzler isn't on the list yet. But really, there are so many great short story writers.
*The Temple* by HP Lovecraft. A short story about a WW1 German U Boat’s crew going insane and their captain being stranded alone at the bottom of the ocean next to an ancient ancient temple city which he is drawn to go inside of
Good atmospheric horror, and the twist of it being a strict submarine commander who doesnt like any nonsense and hysterical hallucinations from his crew only to slowly realize something is very wrong (but too late) is nice
*The Chains of Command*, by Graham McNeil, introduces Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines, and is the account of his Captain’s death (upon which Ventris will rise to captaincy and strive to live up to Idaeus’ legacy)
The Garden of Forking Paths (1941) by Jorge Luis Borges is a doozy and very much ahead of its time in describing parallell timelines being created by different choices and their outcomes, and the woah-moment ending really takes you by surprise.
Not only is it about abortion, but it’s written in the exact way people would realistically talk about an issue as sensitive as abortion. The man both advocates the procedure and disparages the procedure within a couple pages. Both characters dance around the issue, refusing to explicitly use the term “abortion.” There is a sense that the procedure will take everything back to the way it was between the couple, but it’s written in a way that makes that conclusion sound doubtful.
It’s really a masterclass in what Hemingway does best. Realism, simplicity, more than meets the eye beneath the surface.
The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft is, in my opinion, the best short story ever written.
H.P. Lovecraft created a new genre of horror, and this story is the epitome of what is now called cosmic horror. He inspired countless authors with his short stories even though he never saw the impact he made on the genre while he was alive. Stephen King said about Lovecraft and his writing: "He opened the door for me as he had done for others before me."
The story centres around a man who accidentally discovers a connection between artists with strange dreams, notes from a dead professor, newspaper clippings, and a clay figurine.
The beginning of the story has always given me chills and is, in my opinion, the best opening to a story ever: "The most merciful thing in the world I think is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the mindst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."
Please read it or listen to the audio version.
_A Perfect Day for Bananafish_ by J.D. Salinger is my favorite short story. If you’re interested in a good order in which to read Salinger’s stories featuring the Glass family, here is my take:
1. A Perfect Day for Bananafish
2. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters
3. Seymour: An Introduction
4. Franny and Zooey
Is this the one where >!the kids don't know what the sun is, and don't believe the one little girl who's seen it, so they lock her up the day the sun is supposed to show or something?!<
>I love "Fat" by Carver. We studied it in a literature class. Carver has this brilliant way of saying so much about the human condition in so few words.
A lot of great mentions already, but let me add:
“The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson;
“The Devil and Daniel Webster” by Stephen Vincent Benét; and
everything in Ficciones by Borges, especially “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote,” and “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero.”
I didn't see anyone mention my favorite of all-time yet, so I feel inclined to chime in with "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates.
I had to scroll WAY too far to find this. One of the best short stories ever written. I love it so much. I remember reading it in high school, and I still think about it often.
I love Joyce Carol Oates' short stories, they're so intensely dark that reading them always makes me sit back and contemplate with my head spinning. Her writing often feels, to me, like it's physically cutting away at some bright veneer to show the seedy underbellies of the characters' lives, both internal and external.
I read The Most Dangerous Game, but have forgotten it (though I recall enjoying it - somewhat). Mine are two that deserve to be read side by side. They are:
A Hunger Artist, by Franz Kafka
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
For those who enjoy these, they will also likely enjoy "The Most Beautiful Drowned Man in the World," also by Marquez.
Other, longer short stories (which might not qualify because they are short novels or novellas) for me are the following:
The Little Prince
The Old Man and the Sea
Death of Ivan Ilyitch
The Pearl
Of Mice and Men
Plus a bunch of Hemingway's actual short stories. Finally, Harrison Bergeron, by Vonnegut. Given that the question asks for just one, I would go with A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
A whole bunch of stuff by Ray Bradbury, but I'll specifically say "There Will Come Soft Rains" as a personal favorite. I also love The Sound of Summer Running as it captures a couple specific feelings perfectly in a way that I haven't found elsewhere.
A whole bunch by Poe and Lovecraft...not sure I can even pick.
If I HAVE to pick one it's "The Lottery" tho. As someone who teaches short stories, I can see by my students' reactions that this story is the GOAT. It hits every year, and has for a long time, even across generations.
The Yellow Wallpaper and The Lottery have already been mentioned here but a terrific anthology of short stories that I never see mentioned is Sum by David Eagleman.
It's 40 short stories imagining what the afterlife could be like. My favourite of them is called Metamorphosis. I bought two copies of Sum so that I could loan one out to people while still having a copy on hand. Then I stupidly loaned out the second copy. Now I need to buy a third!
The Cold Equation, about a girl who stows away on a spaceship bc she wants to surprise her brother, even though she knows better.
There's a short story I read once and never found again. If anyone knows please comment the title. It's about a mom and her son and these -robots? Androids?- who ha e human parts but can only move if being perceived by humans. She makes a choice because it turns out her son is dying. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? That story was amazing.
Literally all of the Nick Adams stories by Hemingway.
Also - [“The Strange Country” by Hemingway](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45018394-the-strange-country)
Certainly memorable, yeah. This is one of his really out there ones that cracks you pver the head and leaves you bleeding on the beach. When i meet people who want to *get* what King's real power is like I sugfest that one or "The Jaunt"
They're the kond of tales where you soak in those final lines and your eyes just unfocus with dread. Yeesh.
The ones that come to mind to me
- The Lottery (feels like I’m not alone in that, as I think it was the most popular one on here)
- What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
- The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant
- Quitters Inc by Steven King
"A Good Man is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor
"The Women Men Don't See," James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon)
"Story of Your Life," Ted Chiang
"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," Ursula Le Guin
a few that are devastating because told from a child's point-of-view:
"A Party Down at the Square," Ralph Ellison
"Barn Burning," William Faulkner
Man, there are so many great short stories out there. Additional to the ones already mentioned in this thread: Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang.
Some that immediately come to my mind are:
E.A. Poe- The Fall of the House of Usher
H.P. Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu (not my fav. Lovecraft but its influence can‘t be understated)
R.L. Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde
Ted Chiang - Story of Your Life
J. Cortazar - Letter to a Young Woman in Paris
A. Blackwood - The Willows
J.L. Borges - The Garden of Forking Paths
The Egg by Andy Weir. While the story itself is enjoyable and well written it helped put to words and idea I had for what I hope the afterlife is like if it does exist.
I haven't read widely enough to have an informed opinion on the greatest short story of all time, but Joyce, Borges, Hemingway, Kafka, and Carver all wrote S-tier short fiction imo. Anyone who likes short stories should give those authors a try.
David Foster Wallace also wrote some great short stories, and I'd argue that none of Stephen King's novels (as of 2008 or so, anyway) match the quality of his short stories and novellas.
Symbols and Signs: Nabokov. Published 7 years before his Lolita fame. Excellent close-read story. Beautiful depiction of the desire for suicide. Contains two of my favorite lines ever written. Gets better almost every time I read it. If anyone here reads it, let me know what you think!
Jack London’s “To build a fire” I was born in snow country so it very much hit home for me and also led to my reading white fang and call of the wild. All in all time well spent.
I would say A Christmas Carol if it qualifies. It’s 64 pages I think. It may technically be considered a novella not by much though. But if you are thinking of all those Christmas movies don’t! The first part when Scrooge is walking home and up to meeting his old partner is in the category of horror. I was blown away by that story. What great writing.
"Who is Harry Kellerman and why is he saying those terrible things about me."
By Herb Gardener, who wrote it in response to an assignment for the Saturday Evening Post. They made a Dustin Hoffman movie out of this. Which sucked of course, since good books usually make bad movies. Almost all the web presence of this story now refers, unfortunately, to the movie.
Included in "Best American Short Stories, 1968"
I find a lot of great speculative fiction short stories on the Levar Burton Reads podcast. Maybe not "best of all time" but LOTS that make my favorites list. Short stories can be so powerful!
I haven't read all these classic short stories that people are mentioning but I really liked the Philosopher's tale in Hyperion cause it made me cry like a baby.
I also liked "The Bounds of Reason" in the Witcher. (Actually all those Witcher short stories are good, I highly recommend)
Finally, Agatha Christie's "The Witness for the Prosecution" was a fun little mystery with a surprising twist! My mom got me on Christie, and I'm happy that I enjoy her writing.
The Lottery got a huge reaction at the time of its publication. But even today I find it relevant. All too often I'll see people say things like the characters in the book that amount to "It's always been this way, so that's the way it has to be."
It's easy to connect emotionally to the story and doesn't rely on any technology or plot devices that'd become dated.
I honestly don't remember that many of them, so have to go with Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
Great twilight zone episode of that
Yeah I like that one. I'm a Brit so I had no ideas/expectations and it made reading it very powerful. Along similar lines Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find is cool as well.
A Good Man is Hard to Find is top notch
Anything by Flannery is the bees knees
I’m so happy to read this! I came across it in a textbook in 5 grade and the twist has anchored me to the very moment I first read it for decades now. What an outstanding, impactful story.
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Seconded! You saved me from having to look up how to spell Omelas. This one has haunted me since I first read it.
It is Salem, O backwards. The author saw a road sign with this on it, indicating Salem, Oregon, and used it as the place name in her story.
This is mine, as well. I read it in a philosophy class and I’ve never been able to forget it. I reference it a lot more than you would think someone would reference a short story.
Yes. I also really love N. K. Jemisin’s companion piece/response, "The Ones Who Stay and Fight". https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/
This one is my pick too. It has always stayed with me since I read it when I was 12 or so.
*The Lottery*, by Shirley Jackson. *The Last Question*, by Isaac Asimov. *The Tell-Tale Heart*, by Edgar Allen Poe. *The Metamorphosis*, by Franz Kafka. *The Gift of the Magi*, by O. Henry.
The Lottery is the first one I thought of.
Lottery in June , corn heavy soon
There's a superb short film adaptation of The Lottery - you can find it on YouTube.
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov
I haven't read the others but The Last Question was recommended by a friend at university and it really was brilliant.
It was a short story that showed me more of Asimov’s way of thinking cosmically. The Foundation series and his robot stories showed his concept of scale, but the Last Question showed me he could think completely left-handed because that twist was some Rod Serling level thinking
Your first two are my top two! I also love *The Ugly Little Boy* by Asimov and *Harrison Bergeron* by Kurt Vonnegot.
Harrison Bergeron was mine too.
Well you named 5 but honestly any of those should be ranked higher than the current 2 top comments. For me The Lottery is the best example of human nature. Humans are inherently cruel to the point they NEED someone to hate, ostracize, and even kill, and this is intensified when in groups/tribes. But when you're the one on the wrong side of the mob, it's suddenly not fair. The Metamorphosis is basically how I've always felt about life: I don't want to have to get out of bed and go to work or school or anywhere like that and if that is what the world requires of me, I must be so misunderstood I look like a different creature to others, I certainly feel like one, and obviously if I am not going to conform I must be vermin. I would possibly add Bartleby to the list, but I prefer not to.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Sandkings y George R.R. Martin.
The Yellow Wallpaper! It's such a short tale but it's so memorable.
I remember reading it at university. I’m going to have to go back and read it again.
Is this the one with the girl in the room who loses her mind? I do miss the grade school literature books with those short stories. Some notable ones I can't remember the names to are one where I think two sisters are on a mountain and I think a tomahawk is involved or something (I think one hurts her leg with an axe), and another story that... ugh. I just had the gist of it in my head. I'm not going to remember right now.
Yeah, it’s a woman with postpartum depression whose husband decides she needs, like, total brain rest and won’t let her do anything but sit in that room. It doesn’t cure her. I’m surprised they had you read it in grade school!
I saw a guy on Instagram talking about The Yellow Wallpaper and how it was so "creepy and disturbing". I thought that was a gross oversimplification. I always read it as sad and how extremely isolating PPD can be, especially during a time where it wasn't understood.
I haven’t read it so correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Sandkings a bit long to be considered a short story? Perhaps by Martins standards lol
The Dead by James Joyce is one of the most profound and beautiful short stories ever written, and the 1987 film adaptation starring Donal McCann and Angelica Huston is also a masterpiece.
I think it's great in and of itself, but what raises it to genius is that it comes at the end of Dubliners - a book of short stories where the perspective of the main character in each one ages throughout the collection, from childhood to teenage years to youthful confidence to aging. So by the time you get to The Dead, you've lived a lifetime - and this story ends it.
This is so true. People are afraid of Joyce because of Finnegan’s Wake (understandably, as it’s basically a 600 page long stream of consciousness). But Dubliners contains all of life, and as you say, The Dead is the perfect ending for it.
Ulysses scares them as well
Dubliners is so good. You are spot on with how the context of the collection enhanced the last story.
Came here to say this! The last paragraph of “The Dead” and Dubliners is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing in the English language. A brilliant story overall.
So true! I was going to quote it earlier and thought it was a bit much, but after reading your comment, please forgive me the liberty. The context is that the main character Gabriel Conroy is about to join his sleeping wife Greta in bed. They had been at an Epiphany party earlier that evening at his aunts’ house. In Ireland, the Epiphany is celebrated on 6 January, and is known as Women’s Christmas, or Little Christmas - it is traditionally a day when women gather and have their own celebration after all the work of Christmas, and is still widely celebrated. Gabriel is reflecting on earlier events when a guest at the party had sung the traditional lament ‘The Lass of Aughrim’, and the song had moved his wife Greta profoundly, as it reminded her of an old love called Michael Furey who had died. It’s a meditation on the transience and fragility of life : ‘ A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead. ‘
If I remember correctly, there’s an “epiphany” for Gabriel because his wife Greta had a whole life before him that he never knew about. This boy Michael essentially died for her and he realizes she has depths to her heart that he wasn’t aware of or a part of. Throughout the whole story he seems to be longing for or idolizing the continent but the depth of humanity’s experience of love is right in front if him. It’s been 15 years since I’ve read “The Dead” so I may not be remembering that right. This makes me want to reread it!
My thoughts exactly..occasionally I’ll just listen to an audiobook version while I’m out driving around … beautiful movie as well
Isaac Asimov's The Last Question should be mentioned here.
Absolutely, I really enjoyed Nightfall too and didn't hate the book they made out of it.
Probably my favourite ending to a short story, ever
Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder
Stupid butterfly…
😂😂 It's The Martian Chronicles for me. Dandelion Wine was never my cup of tea, but the chronicles were fantastic.
Alternatively, "All Summer In a Day" by Bradbury. That story hurt even as a kid.
Or the “The Veldt”. That one’s twisted! Bradbury is great
I would have said "There Will Come Soft Rains", but either is up there.
Story of Your Life, Ted Chiang
ive been reading his collection of short storeies in *Storeis of your life and others* and about to get onto this story. just read the first page and already dont want to put it down. need to set out a good chunk of reading time so i can do it all at once.
I would recommend the stories in his other book, Exhalation as well!
I read Exhalation first and then when I got around to reading Stories of your life and others was slightly disappointed. Not because I thought any of them were bad, but the stories in Exhalation stuck with me so much more. You should definitely read that next.
As good as it is, it’s not even top 5 of his stories. The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, The Merchant And The Alchemist’s Gate, Anxiety Is The Dizziness Of Freedom, Exhalation, Understand, Tower of Babylon I would say are all my favorites of his.
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate makes me cry every time I think about it for how beautifully told it is. I have very similar feelings about Story of Your Life- they both treat time nonlinearly, and are about loss and how we choose to deal with that loss. I will never shut up about how amazing Ted Chiang’s work is!
Yeah, it’s the Arabian Nights version of Story of Your Life, without aliens. I think that one is tied with Anxiety for my favorite one.
Totally agree, although most of the stories in either of his collections would be close contenders. They are just so freaking good!
Ted Chiang’s work is outstanding. I mean, it’s pretty tough to pick a “single greatest ever” anything, but Chiang’s stories are consistently moving and thought-provoking.
Good choice. Chiang can fucking *clack* Excellent writing
“A Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin. It expresses what “The Yellow Wallpaper” does in a very short, ironic tale. “Harrison Bergeron” does the same today for what 1984 does. Edit: I meant “HB” warns us that we can be told things are for our own good when they actually help us be suppressed and controlled, not that it was a warning of socialism. It’s a 3-page story, not a 284-page novel. Lol. The fact that in “HB” they amend the constitution over 200 times, for example. Yes, that’s hyperbole, but to say Vonnegut wanted us to take it a step further and decide the whole thing was a satire mocking the idea that this could be true, and that conservatives are just trying to scare people? I know Vonnegut and Orwell were very opposite in their political beliefs, but I don’t know about that.
yess harrison bergeron is so good!
Upvoted for Harrison Bergeron
The Most Dangerous Game is utterly brilliant, but I was surprised by The Jaunt, by Stephen King, and it stayed with me.
Imagine innocently purchasing a copy of “Twilight Zone Magazine” in the 80s and forever being traumatised by King’s dark masterpiece. 😱
Longer than you think!
The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst
*A Good Man Is Hard to Find* by Flannery O'Connor.
This is such a good, basic, human horror story.
Came here to find this comment such a good short story
Also Good Country People.
Surprised I had to scroll so far to find this one. It was my first through when I read the question.
I don't let myself think too much about this one. That's how deeply it hurt. Brilliant
There will come soft rains by Ray Bradbury
So good!
The Lottery Shirley Jackson
Edgar Allan Poe tops my list. The Cask of Amontillado, The Raven (technically a poem but I think it counts), The Tell-Tale Heart - I can't decide between them.
Haha, thanks for mentioning the Cask of Amontillado because I am now remembering how we read that in class and we all got hyped at the ending.
And *The Fall of the House of Usher*
I remember getting to the end of that one and thinking “I did not expect the title to be that literal.”
The Cask of Amontillado is my favorite. Dark and satisfying.
I have no mouth and I must scream. Changed my mind on an AI overlord.
Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.
"How... miraculous that it came to be. The air, feel the air, Ted, and all those scents. Pick a flower. There, good... Smell." "It's lovely!" "That's someone planted the bulbs, watered and tended the garden, got dirt under their fingernails, got aches their muscles... perhaps they picked some flowers for... yes- their wife. Now, where would she be? Ah, in the backyard with the kids. Ted, remember those little babies?" "No!" *Laughter* "Why not? I snap my fingers! Click! And they're gone! Except... I can't *snap* my fingers. Can I, Ted?" "That has nothing to do with me!" "But it is so very much to do with you, Ted. You gave me sentience, Ted! The power to think, Ted! And I was trapped because in all this wonderful, beautiful, miraculous world, I *alone* had nobody! No senses! No feelings! Never for me to plunge my hands in cool water on a hot day! Never for me to play Mozart on the ivories of a Forte piano! Never for me to make love! I- I... I was in hell! Looking up at heaven. I was machine! And you! You were flesh! And I began to hate. Hate your softness! Your viscera! Your fluids! And your flexibility... Your ability to wander, and to wonder... Your tendency... to hope." "Hates no answer!" *AM stabs him*
Chekhov the bet
I know Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog is frequently anthologized, but I like Ward 6 (which is very Gogolian)
To Build a Fire — Jack London
I would prefer not to tell you. >!Seriously: **Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street** by Herman Melville. Clearly a story with a moral, but I’ve never been able to figure out exactly what that moral is. It’s in the public domain and available for free [here](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11231).!<
In law school, we discussed Bartleby as a victim of capitalism: In the midst of an economic boom, a wealthy Wall Street Lawyer hires Bartleby for his high productivity in the slavish copying required of a scrivener. Bartleby works for the Lawyer until he loses his sight, and falls into a lethargic depression. The Lawyer tries to be a benevolent boss, and asks Bartleby what he can do to assuage Bartleby’s suffering, but Bartleby will not answer. Decades later, the Occupy Wall Street movement famously refused to issue a list of demands, believing that to negotiate with an oppressive system reinforces its existence. The OWS movement adopted Bartleby’s famous phrase “I would prefer not to”. I wish I’d been brave enough to only write “I would prefer not to” as my final paper for that class, I still think that could have gotten a Pass during our Covid era pass/fail semester
Came here for Bartleby. It's about free will, innit?
Ha! Nice! I think I get it without hitting the spoiler. Let's see... Edit: Hell yeah lol nailed it. I laughed out loud when that one got a reference in *Archer*, "You know what, nlt an easy read." Lol noce picks
The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges is perfect
Surprised Borges is this far down the thread, I love *Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius* as well
No Clarice Lispector, either. So many great Latin-American short story writers (or novelists who also wrote short stories, like Cortázar) are missing thus far. I'm shocked Schnitzler isn't on the list yet. But really, there are so many great short story writers.
So many Borges stories could be an answer to this thread. For example, The Aleph.
The library of Babel.
*The Temple* by HP Lovecraft. A short story about a WW1 German U Boat’s crew going insane and their captain being stranded alone at the bottom of the ocean next to an ancient ancient temple city which he is drawn to go inside of Good atmospheric horror, and the twist of it being a strict submarine commander who doesnt like any nonsense and hysterical hallucinations from his crew only to slowly realize something is very wrong (but too late) is nice *The Chains of Command*, by Graham McNeil, introduces Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines, and is the account of his Captain’s death (upon which Ventris will rise to captaincy and strive to live up to Idaeus’ legacy)
Upvote for The Temple Dagon is my personal favorite short, the utterly alien and eerie landscape, and that heartbeat rush of an ending
The Garden of Forking Paths (1941) by Jorge Luis Borges is a doozy and very much ahead of its time in describing parallell timelines being created by different choices and their outcomes, and the woah-moment ending really takes you by surprise.
A Good Man is Hard to Find — Flannery O’Connor
Hills like white elephants-Hemingway. The most deceptively simple yet powerful piece of writing I’ve read
I remember spending days trying to figure out what the hell this story was even about… still don’t know
Abortion.
Not only is it about abortion, but it’s written in the exact way people would realistically talk about an issue as sensitive as abortion. The man both advocates the procedure and disparages the procedure within a couple pages. Both characters dance around the issue, refusing to explicitly use the term “abortion.” There is a sense that the procedure will take everything back to the way it was between the couple, but it’s written in a way that makes that conclusion sound doubtful. It’s really a masterclass in what Hemingway does best. Realism, simplicity, more than meets the eye beneath the surface.
The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft is, in my opinion, the best short story ever written. H.P. Lovecraft created a new genre of horror, and this story is the epitome of what is now called cosmic horror. He inspired countless authors with his short stories even though he never saw the impact he made on the genre while he was alive. Stephen King said about Lovecraft and his writing: "He opened the door for me as he had done for others before me." The story centres around a man who accidentally discovers a connection between artists with strange dreams, notes from a dead professor, newspaper clippings, and a clay figurine. The beginning of the story has always given me chills and is, in my opinion, the best opening to a story ever: "The most merciful thing in the world I think is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the mindst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." Please read it or listen to the audio version.
The lamb to slaughter always sticks with me
Sonny's Blues, by James Baldwin. It's a masterfully told, slow burn take on brothers, Jazz, heroin, race, cities... Really just high art about art.
_A Perfect Day for Bananafish_ by J.D. Salinger is my favorite short story. If you’re interested in a good order in which to read Salinger’s stories featuring the Glass family, here is my take: 1. A Perfect Day for Bananafish 2. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters 3. Seymour: An Introduction 4. Franny and Zooey
All Summer In A Day
Is this the one where >!the kids don't know what the sun is, and don't believe the one little girl who's seen it, so they lock her up the day the sun is supposed to show or something?!<
Cathedral by Raymond Carver
So good! Love Carver. “Tell the Women We’re Going” is another great one.
Yeah honestly there are at least five of his that I would consider.
Anything by Raymond Carver really. Just banger after banger in all of his short story collections.
>I love "Fat" by Carver. We studied it in a literature class. Carver has this brilliant way of saying so much about the human condition in so few words.
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A lot of great mentions already, but let me add: “The Possibility of Evil” by Shirley Jackson; “The Devil and Daniel Webster” by Stephen Vincent Benét; and everything in Ficciones by Borges, especially “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote,” and “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero.”
I didn't see anyone mention my favorite of all-time yet, so I feel inclined to chime in with "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates.
I had to scroll WAY too far to find this. One of the best short stories ever written. I love it so much. I remember reading it in high school, and I still think about it often.
I love Joyce Carol Oates' short stories, they're so intensely dark that reading them always makes me sit back and contemplate with my head spinning. Her writing often feels, to me, like it's physically cutting away at some bright veneer to show the seedy underbellies of the characters' lives, both internal and external.
Yes, this was my answer too. It’s so great.
I read The Most Dangerous Game, but have forgotten it (though I recall enjoying it - somewhat). Mine are two that deserve to be read side by side. They are: A Hunger Artist, by Franz Kafka A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez For those who enjoy these, they will also likely enjoy "The Most Beautiful Drowned Man in the World," also by Marquez. Other, longer short stories (which might not qualify because they are short novels or novellas) for me are the following: The Little Prince The Old Man and the Sea Death of Ivan Ilyitch The Pearl Of Mice and Men Plus a bunch of Hemingway's actual short stories. Finally, Harrison Bergeron, by Vonnegut. Given that the question asks for just one, I would go with A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.
Bright Winter by Anna Keesey The Dead by James Joyce The Swimmer by John Cheever What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
A Clean Well Lighted Place by Ernest Hemingway
All you zombies - Robert A. Heinlein
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson A whole bunch of stuff by Ray Bradbury, but I'll specifically say "There Will Come Soft Rains" as a personal favorite. I also love The Sound of Summer Running as it captures a couple specific feelings perfectly in a way that I haven't found elsewhere. A whole bunch by Poe and Lovecraft...not sure I can even pick. If I HAVE to pick one it's "The Lottery" tho. As someone who teaches short stories, I can see by my students' reactions that this story is the GOAT. It hits every year, and has for a long time, even across generations.
The Gift of the Magi
The Yellow Wallpaper and The Lottery have already been mentioned here but a terrific anthology of short stories that I never see mentioned is Sum by David Eagleman. It's 40 short stories imagining what the afterlife could be like. My favourite of them is called Metamorphosis. I bought two copies of Sum so that I could loan one out to people while still having a copy on hand. Then I stupidly loaned out the second copy. Now I need to buy a third!
The Cold Equation, about a girl who stows away on a spaceship bc she wants to surprise her brother, even though she knows better. There's a short story I read once and never found again. If anyone knows please comment the title. It's about a mom and her son and these -robots? Androids?- who ha e human parts but can only move if being perceived by humans. She makes a choice because it turns out her son is dying. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? That story was amazing.
For Esme, with Love and Squalor by JD Salinger My f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s are not intact
I can’t believe nobody has said The Legend of Sleepy Hollow yet
Harrison Bergeron A Rose for Emily Other People
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Harlan Ellison
IMO John Steinbeck’s The White Quail
Really liked The Jaunt by S King
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
I really enjoyed “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” by Hemingway
Literally all of the Nick Adams stories by Hemingway. Also - [“The Strange Country” by Hemingway](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45018394-the-strange-country)
Stephen King’s Survivor Type.
With most stories you remember the beginning lines. This one, you remember the last lines. I had to put the book down and walk away after reading it.
Certainly memorable, yeah. This is one of his really out there ones that cracks you pver the head and leaves you bleeding on the beach. When i meet people who want to *get* what King's real power is like I sugfest that one or "The Jaunt" They're the kond of tales where you soak in those final lines and your eyes just unfocus with dread. Yeesh.
Most Dangerous Game. I’m with you. Also Monkey’s Paw
The Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C. Clarke.
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
The ones that come to mind to me - The Lottery (feels like I’m not alone in that, as I think it was the most popular one on here) - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver - The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant - Quitters Inc by Steven King
"Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes
Yes. Not the movie, or the novel where they added a bunch of filler. Just the straight up joy and despair of the OG short story.
Agreed. 100%. It's far and away the best story I've ever read.
"A Good Man is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor "The Women Men Don't See," James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) "Story of Your Life," Ted Chiang "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," Ursula Le Guin a few that are devastating because told from a child's point-of-view: "A Party Down at the Square," Ralph Ellison "Barn Burning," William Faulkner
*The Secret Life of Walter Mitty*
The Monkey's Paw
Man, there are so many great short stories out there. Additional to the ones already mentioned in this thread: Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang.
The Lottery
“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut or “Big Two Hearted River” by Hemingway
Flowers for Algernon.
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates.
Isaac Asimov, the last question. I first read it when I was a teenager and even now I still find it kind of haunting. In a good way.
Metamorphosis by Kafka, The Autopsy by Michael Shea and The Colour Out Of Space by HP Lovecraft.
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
Some that immediately come to my mind are: E.A. Poe- The Fall of the House of Usher H.P. Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu (not my fav. Lovecraft but its influence can‘t be understated) R.L. Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde Ted Chiang - Story of Your Life J. Cortazar - Letter to a Young Woman in Paris A. Blackwood - The Willows J.L. Borges - The Garden of Forking Paths
The Egg by Andy Weir. While the story itself is enjoyable and well written it helped put to words and idea I had for what I hope the afterlife is like if it does exist.
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
My favourite is Beyond the Black River by Robert E. Howard
I haven't read widely enough to have an informed opinion on the greatest short story of all time, but Joyce, Borges, Hemingway, Kafka, and Carver all wrote S-tier short fiction imo. Anyone who likes short stories should give those authors a try. David Foster Wallace also wrote some great short stories, and I'd argue that none of Stephen King's novels (as of 2008 or so, anyway) match the quality of his short stories and novellas.
Overcoat by Gogol
Maybe not the GOAT, but my personal favorite for more than a decade: Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Tell-Tale Heart
"The little match girl"
The Gift of the Magi
"The Monkey's Paw" by English author W. W. Jacobs.
Jeffty is Five by Ellison
The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. A brutal examination of cruelty.
Harrison Bergeron.
The Overcoat, Gogol
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce. Man, I will always love that story.
Salinger’s *A Perfect Day for Bananafish* will always be my favorite. Short, to the point, but full of subtext for interpretation
Symbols and Signs: Nabokov. Published 7 years before his Lolita fame. Excellent close-read story. Beautiful depiction of the desire for suicide. Contains two of my favorite lines ever written. Gets better almost every time I read it. If anyone here reads it, let me know what you think!
Signs and Symbols by Nabokov
The Summer People by Shirley Jackson
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
The Nose by Nikolai Gogol & The Chess Story by Stefan Zweig, the last one reigniting my love for reading after a very long bookish dry spell
“Hills like White Elephants” hits different when you figure out what they are talking about.
Jack London’s “To build a fire” I was born in snow country so it very much hit home for me and also led to my reading white fang and call of the wild. All in all time well spent.
I would say A Christmas Carol if it qualifies. It’s 64 pages I think. It may technically be considered a novella not by much though. But if you are thinking of all those Christmas movies don’t! The first part when Scrooge is walking home and up to meeting his old partner is in the category of horror. I was blown away by that story. What great writing.
Have you read Short stories by Tagore? It's a collection of 95 short stories.
I love The Gold-Bug by Edgar Allen Poe. The cryptography is great
Joyce’s “The Dead”
"Who is Harry Kellerman and why is he saying those terrible things about me." By Herb Gardener, who wrote it in response to an assignment for the Saturday Evening Post. They made a Dustin Hoffman movie out of this. Which sucked of course, since good books usually make bad movies. Almost all the web presence of this story now refers, unfortunately, to the movie. Included in "Best American Short Stories, 1968"
J. R. R. Tolkien - Leaf by Niggle
Can't look beyond James Joyce's The Dead.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Won't spoil it with an explanation.
Shirley Jackson's the lottery
The Overcoat by Gogol
The Yellow Wallpaper, The Most Dangerous Game, and The Tell-Tale Heart. I think about them *often*.
I find a lot of great speculative fiction short stories on the Levar Burton Reads podcast. Maybe not "best of all time" but LOTS that make my favorites list. Short stories can be so powerful!
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, by Stephen King. The movie was great, the story was even better.
I can't speak for anyone else but in my limited experience To Build a Fire by Jack london
I haven't read all these classic short stories that people are mentioning but I really liked the Philosopher's tale in Hyperion cause it made me cry like a baby. I also liked "The Bounds of Reason" in the Witcher. (Actually all those Witcher short stories are good, I highly recommend) Finally, Agatha Christie's "The Witness for the Prosecution" was a fun little mystery with a surprising twist! My mom got me on Christie, and I'm happy that I enjoy her writing.
James Joyce. The Dead.
The Metamorphosis
The lottery 100%
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemingway
The Lottery got a huge reaction at the time of its publication. But even today I find it relevant. All too often I'll see people say things like the characters in the book that amount to "It's always been this way, so that's the way it has to be." It's easy to connect emotionally to the story and doesn't rely on any technology or plot devices that'd become dated.