Great short stories of the masters

Collected here are forty-nine uncommon stories - with introductory notes - drawn from the world's greatest essayists, poets, novelists, playwrights, and short story writers. Selected not only for sheer inventiveness, but also for the power of great literary talent, these selections include favourites and lesser-known stories, some entirely new to anthologies, from such masters as Daniel Defoe, Nahaniel Hawthorne, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Washington Irving, James Joyce, Bernard Malamud, Ignazzio Silone, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rabindranath Tagore, and Leo Tolstoy, among others. International in scope, these stories are also rich in detail, turmoil, irrationality, passion, and poetry.