Since the series'
inception in 1915, the annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories have
launched literary careers, showcased the most compelling stories of each year,
and confirmed for all time the significance of the short story in our national literature.
THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY, published in 2000 brings
together the best of the best - fifty-five extraordinary stories that represent
a century's worth of unsurpassed accomplishments in this quintessentially
American literary genre. Here are the stories that have endured the test of
time: masterworks by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O'Connor, John Cheever,
Eudora Welty, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, and scores of others. These are the writers who have shaped and defined the
landscape of the American short story, who have unflinchingly explored all
aspects of the human condition, and whose works will continue to speak to us in the twenty-first century.
In this SDG we will read all of these stories and discuss
what makes them the best, how each explored aspects of the human condition, and
whether each story continues to speak to us in the first 20 years of the 21st
Century.