"Original Bantam edition published August 1952 ... Bantam Classic reissue September 2005"--Title page verso

Includes indexes

Adventure of the German student / Washington Irving -- Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Ms. found in a bottle / Edgar Allan Poe -- Fiddler -- Herman Melville -- What was it? / Fitz-James O'Brien -- Luck / Mark Twain -- Outcasts of Poker Flat / Bret Harte -- Diamond thing / Ambrose Bierce -- Two faces / Henry James -- A New England nun / Mary E. Wilkins Freeman -- Courting of Sister Wisby / Sarah Orne Jewett -- The dilettante / Edith Wharton -- Masters of arts / O. Henry -- Effie Whittlesy / George Ade -- Mr. Dooley on the popularity of firemen / Finley Peter Dunne -- Bride comes to Yellow Sky / Stephen Crane --

(cont.) A dead issue / Charles M. Flandrau -- The lost Phoebe / Theodore Dreiser -- Father is firm with his ailments / Clarence Day -- Death in the woods / Sherwood Anderson -- To build a fire / Jack London -- Use of force / William Carlos Williams -- Old folks' Christmas / Ring W. Lardner -- Silent snow, secret snow / Conrad Aiken -- By the waters of Babylon / Stephen Vincent Benet -- Soldiers of the republic / Dorothy Parker -- Mr. Preble gets rid of his wife / James Thurber -- Cluney McFarrar's hardtack / John McNulty -- Darkness of the night / Robert M. Coates -- The old people / William Faulkner -- Grapes for Monsieur Cape / Ludwig Bemelmans -- A man of the world / Ernest Hemingway -- The hour of letdown / W.E.B. White --

(cont.) The resting place / Oliver La Farge -- The touch of nutmeg makes it / John Collier -- The harness / John Steinbeck -- Friend of the family / Kay Boyle -- The rumor / Erskine Caldwell -- There was a young lady of Perth / William Saroyan -- Downfall of fascism in Black Ankle County / Joseph Mitchell -- The French scarecrow / William Maxwell -- Blue-winged teal / Wallace Stegner -- Archimandrite's niece / James Reid Parker -- A mother's tale / James Agee -- National pastime / John Cheever -- Girls in their summer dresses / Irwin Shaw -- Death of Shorty / Richard P. Russell -- Grandma and the Hindu monk / Seymour Freedgood -- Madame Zilensky and the king of Finland / Carson McCullers -- Lucid eye in Silver Town / John Updike.