The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door… – Fredric Brown
As I’ve said many times, I prefer short stories to novels; even when I shared my list of favorite books a year ago, six of thirteen were short story collections. As I said then, “This is because for me, a large part of the pleasure of a book is the mood it sets, and if that mood is disturbed I can’t enjoy it nearly as much. Short stories are quickly consumed, and even novellas or short novels can be read in one extended sitting…When I started whoring the long-established preference for short fiction grew even stronger, because I knew that at any moment I might be interrupted by a phone call from a client and have to run off.” But despite this preference (or perhaps because of it), choosing a list of favorite short stories was even more difficult than choosing my favorite books. Last May Eve I provided my list of the ten scariest short stories, and I’ve excluded those from this list along with all stories which are included in any of my favorite books (which means everything by Doyle, Lovecraft and Poe). I also excluded fairy tales because, though I love them dearly, they’re really a different genre (and one I will visit in a future column).
Because most of these are quite well-known and highly regarded, and none of them were published after I was born, I was able to secure PDFs of all but two. There was a PDF of #7 as well, but it was so poorly formatted that the ends of most lines were cut off on the right side; I therefore decided not to provide it, but if someone can locate a proper copy I will. You will note the majority of these are quite short; three of them qualify as short-shorts, and only two are novelettes. But since y’all know my own fiction is primarily in the short-short format, that shouldn’t surprise you. All of these are either fantasy, science fiction, horror or suspense except for #3, which is essentially psychological horror (as is #5). They all have something else in common: all are unique and highly memorable. They are listed here in chronological order.
1) “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844)
This gothic tale is often listed as one of the earliest works of science fiction, because its premise relies on human experimentation by a mad scientist. Hawthorne was far more interested in the dark portions of the human soul than in speculation about the nature of the physical universe, but his short stories often explore this by means of some fantastic situation. Those who recognized this month’s fictional interlude as a tribute to this story are probably unsurprised to see it here.
2) “How Much Land Does A Man Need?” by Leo Tolstoy (1886)
Though he is best known in the English-speaking world for his lengthy novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy also wrote many fine short stories including this fine example of the subgenre the French refer to as contes cruels, stories which are not necessarily supernatural but demonstrate the cruelty of fate and usually conclude with a shocking or horrifying twist. John Collier and Roald Dahl (see below) also produced many tales of this type.
3) “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad (1899)
A steamboat captain travels up a river in Africa to investigate his company’s trade agent at an outpost in the interior, and discovers that the “Dark Continent” is not nearly as dark as the recesses of the human heart. Many of you may have studied the story in literature class, and though it has been adapted several times the most famous was Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, which transposed the events to Vietnam War-era Cambodia.
4) “Sredni Vashtar” by Saki (1914)
Saki was the pen name of H.H. Munro, a brilliant British author whose career was cut short by a German sniper at the Battle of the Ancre in 1916. His best work is equal parts horror and humor, and this one – the story of a sickly orphan who creates his own secret pagan cult in his guardian’s shed – is its perfect exemplar.
5) “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” by Conrad Aiken (1934)
This chilling (no pun intended) tale of a young boy’s descent into madness manages to create a horrifying atmosphere without any of the conventional elements of horror. In addition to the PDF, I thought y’all might enjoy this short film made for TV in 1966; the same director later remade it as an episode of Night Gallery, narrated by Orson Welles.
6) “Thus I Refute Beelzy” by John Collier (1940)
Many of John Collier’s stories are strange and haunting, but this one more than most. It’s the tale of a boy whose father, one of those annoying people who makes a fetish of rationalism (think Maureen O’Hara in Miracle on 34th Street), becomes jealous of his new imaginary friend and decides to disprove that friend’s existence once and for all.
7) “With Folded Hands” by Jack Williamson (1947)
Some of you may recall that I have referred to this science-fiction warning of the perils of the nanny state once before, in a column which shares its name.
8) “Man from the South” by Roald Dahl (1948)
Many people who know Dahl from his children’s works such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches may not have realized he also had a talent for marvelously wicked adult stories; he even had his own syndicated TV series, Tales of the Unexpected. Even before that a number of his stories were adapted for television, most notably on Alfred Hitchcock Presents; Hitch’s production of this one starred Peter Lorre as the title character who bets Steve McQueen a new car that he can’t light his cigarette lighter ten times in a row without fail.
9) “The Man Who Traveled In Elephants” by Robert Heinlein (1948)
This was Heinlein’s favorite of all his short stories, and mine as well; I can never read it without tearing up. Some critics have dismissed it as a “mistake”, an overly-sentimental fantasy in sharp contrast to his usual hard science fiction. But this is not Heinlein’s only fantasy, nor his only whimsical story, nor his only sentimental one; furthermore, its themes connect it to many of his longer works such as The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, I Will Fear No Evil and The Number of the Beast.
10) “The Nine Billion Names of God” by Arthur C. Clarke (1953)
Clarke is not among my favorite writers; IMHO he’s usually too dry, too self-limited and too obsessed with enormous timescales, and he created his female characters in much the same way Michelangelo did (i.e., by sticking tits onto male figures). But there are a few times he really surpassed himself, and in my estimation this is the best of them.
11) “Space-Time for Springers” by Fritz Leiber (1958)
Don’t make the mistake of dismissing this as the science fiction equivalent of a LOLcat, though at first glance it may appear to be. Yes, it’s cute; yes, the hero is a kitten behaving in a terribly precious way. But stick with it, and you’ll find there’s actually a tale of courage, love, duty and sacrifice under that cuddly and apparently superficial veneer.
12) “Earthmen Bearing Gifts” by Fredric Brown (1960)
As I mentioned in “My Favorite Authors”, Brown was the absolute master of the short-short story, and though he wrote many excellent longer tales (including the one that was adapted into the Star Trek episode “Arena”) he is today best remembered for his little gems like this terribly sad conte cruel.
13) “Sagittarius” by Ray Russell (1962)
Ray Russell was the greatest 20th-century writer in the Gothic style; when I first read his most famous story, “Sardonicus”, I had to check the copyright page to convince myself that it was not first published over a century earlier. “Sagittarius” is the second part of a loose trilogy with the aforementioned story (the third part is “Sanguinarius”). But I’ve always liked “Sagittarius” best for its clever interweaving of the stories of Jack the Ripper, Gilles de Rais, Mr. Hyde and the Grand Guignol Theater; unfortunately I can’t supply a PDF copy, but I own it in Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown, which is well worth the pittance you’ll pay for it.
Out of curiosity; have you by change read MRS. TODD’S SHORTCUT by Stephen king or THE VILLAGE THAT VOTED THE EARTH WAS FLAT by Rudyard Kipling? And if you have, what did you think of them?
Neither, but I’ll keep my eyes open for ’em in collections.
MRS. TODD’S SHORTCUT is in the SKELETON CREW collection by King. THE VILLAGE THAT VOTED THE EARTH WAS FLAT was collected in A DIVERSITY OF CREATURES.
Just FYI.
“Green Magic” by Jack Vance is my favourite short story (it’s nothing to do with eco-loons BTW).
THANK GOD it had NOTHING to do with eco-loons. I’ve just about had enough of those people saving endangered species and making sure our food, water, and air are safe enough to consume. The nerve of these people.
How about their damaging the ecology with well-meaning foolishness? That do that a lot more than they do any good, frankly.
There is a world of difference between the eco-loons and those who want to be good stewards of the earth.
The loons think that every little insect needs to be saved at the detriment of mankind, and that humankind is a parasitical life form that deserves to be wiped out. They are even arrogant enough to think that man could possibly warm the earth – hmmm, why is there global warming on Venus and Mars, then? Couldn’t have anything to do with that large burning ball of gas in the sky?
Sane people are for clean air and water. Eco loons are not sane.
Any story by Isak Dinesen.
I’ve been going through my old stack of 1970’s era Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazines. I read one in one of those issues I think you would appreciate, “Mr. Banjo” by Charles Boeckman… it might be hard to find though.
I know I read “The Man Who Traveled in Elephants” at some point, but I don’t remember it, I will have to reread it, I love Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, “Wise and Cruel was the Bird and wise and cruel were the Sons of the Bird.” Love Saki too, I identified way too much with the kid in “Sredni Vashtar,” I think, as a kid.
My favorite Heinlein is “By His Bootstraps..” For Arthur C. Clarke I liked, “I Remember Babylon,” mainly because it was predictive of the modern age. (It inextricably linked the rise of communication technology, in this case satellite, to increased pornography consumption…. so, he was right about that.) I really love “The Man from the South,” I’ve seen it adapted 3 times, including the Quentin Tarantino version…
Well, I could discuss short stories all day, but back to work….
Not a single one … I have read nary a one of these.
HTF do you find these things?
Tolstoy?
Really?!
(I’m only kidding … looks like I have reading to do!)
Cheery stuff, Maggie.
Oh, you like cheery? Try Washington Irving’s “The Adventure of the German Student”. It’s almost as cheery as it is lengthy.
Congratulations, Maggie, for your exquisite taste in short fiction. Both Collier’s “Thus I Refute Beelzy” and Aiken’s “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” have been on my short list for decades.
For contes cruels, Jack London’s collection When God Laughs & Other Stories has a few.
You know, until you said that it hadn’t actually occurred to me that every one of these involves some kind of death or destruction, including the ones that end either happily or justly.
I’ve only read two of these, How Much Land Does A Man Need and The Nine Billion Names Of God. Both were decent, but overrated.
I saw The Man From The South when it was done for the later version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
I thought I’d read nearly everything by Heinlein, but I have no memory of this one.
Maggie, have you ever heard of the late mystery writer Edward D. Hoch? He wrote over 950 short stories. Beginning in May 1974, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine started publishing a Hoch story every single month for the next 34 years until his death in 2008. He was particularly fond of writing “impossible crime” stories and while not all his stories are locked room puzzles, every one of his anthologies features at least one of those types of stories. I highly recommend any of his anthologies but especially the Sam Hawthorne stories. (Diagnosis: Impossible!, More Things Impossible)
Interesting that there isn’t anything by a female author in there. Is that just a coincidence?
I don’t know if “coincidence” is the right word; it’s just that I’ve never encountered anything by a female author I like as much as these. Similarly, only one of my favorite books, one of my favorite poems and one of my scariest short stories are by women. I judge literature on its merits; I don’t really much care who wrote it.
I did not mean to suggest that you do – still, it leaves me wondering.
Maybe men just tend to write and publish more, as was certainly the case in the past and may still be so to some extent today. It could also be that men write differently – different genres, different outlooks.
Anyway, it was just an observation.
I’m sure the fact that I prefer older work has a lot to do with it; as you say, men wrote and published a great deal more than women up until the last few decades. And that’s even more true in science fiction and horror, my favorite genres.
Fascinating. “The Man Who Travelled in Elephants” is in the same book as two of my favorites: “All You Zombies”, and “And He Built a Crooked House”.
I had written up comments for two of the stories and was working on another. Then a single careless mouse click wiped it all out. So, I will move on and try to catch up with posts after this. I will comment on one of these stories every few days, instead of all or half of them at once. Keeps me from making as long a single post anyway.
Rappaccini’s Daughter
Didn’t care for it. Hawthorne wrote a few of these; Francis Fukuyama was fond of using them as assigned reading when he and others would get together to discuss bioethics. I don’t think Fukuyama ever assigned anything with a title like, say, The Juvenile Diabetic Who Didn’t Die or The Man Who Walked Again. Then again, Hawthorn didn’t seem to write anything like that.
How Much Land Does A Man Need?
I could see this as an ep of The Twilight Zone.
You reviews are wonderful you have really peeked my interest I’m sure I will read them all.