Introduction

The Best American Short Stories series (hereafter referred to as Best ASS) began officially in 1915 when Edward Joseph Harrington O’Brien* published a selection of stories which were, in his opinion, the best short form fiction that America had to offer. In his introduction, O’Brien does little to disguise the fact that his motivation for this collection and publication of Uncle Sam’s finest prose nuggets is not one of instruction, or really even admiration, but rather revenge. Patriotic revenge, specifically. 

Of the offending Englishmen and Irishmen, O’Brien writes that, “[w]e have listened to much wailing during the past year about the absence of all literary qualities in our fiction,” and it seems that chief among the wailers is one James Stephens, an Irish poet whose most enduring legacy is probably the fact that he once bummed a cigar off of Joyce. Stephens wrote that, to date, American writers have had “curiously negative achievement in novel writing” and that the American novel “has no literary distinction.” 

O’Brien continues to document Stephens’ sweeping abuse of American literature, which makes for one of the least encouraging introductions to a book of fiction I’ve ever read, until he pauses and winks at his readership. Now I see he is Odysseus, unmasked at last, turning to face the suitors who have invaded his home and insulted his wife. He lifts his bow and nocks an arrow. Mr. Stephens may have his opinions on American novels, “[b]ut does he know the American short story?” 

No, Telemachus. No, he does not.

Join me, Sam Everick, as I wade through Edward J’s short fiction selections, and those of his successors, in our Jungian quest to find the best American short story.

*Wisely recognizing that he has too many names, Edward drops ‘Harrington’ altogether, shortens ‘Joseph’ to ‘J.’ and publishes henceforth as Edward J. O’Brien