Short Stories 1925 to 2000

(Note: Many of these stories are free and open to the public, but a few are hosted on sites where users are restricted to a certain number of views per month [The New Yorker, for example]. Though not ideal, students who reach their maximum number of views can clear their browser history and continue to access the stories, or you can save a copy locally on your computer. Of course, these sources are providing quality content for free, so if you really like their site, you might consider supporting them through a purchase, a subscription or a social media share too.

Other stories are only available through academic databases like Literary Reference Center Plus and Humanities International Complete. Since most colleges and universities have access to them, links have been provided below. Finally, several story titles are included because of their importance to their historical moment or the author’s oeuvre, but since they are under copyright, they cannot be linked here. These are worth mention though and can be easily located online or in short story collections.)

Achebe, Chinua (1930-2013)

• “The Sacrificial Egg” (1959)
• “The Mad Man” (2008) Available in the Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Dead Men’s Path” (1953)
• “Civil Peace” (1971)

Atwood, Margaret (b. 1939)

• “Bread” (1981)
• “Bodily Harm” (1981) - Available in Humanities International Complete database. CSCC students click here
• “Life Stories” (2007) - Available in the Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Resources of the Ikarians” (2007) - Available in the Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Rape Fantasies” (1977)
• “Happy Endings” (1983)

Baldwin, James (1924-1987)

• “Previous Condition” (1948)
• "1956: Paris” (1956) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Sonny’s Blues” (1957)

Bambara, Toni Cade (1939-1995)

• “Ice” (1999) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Raymond’s Run” (1999) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here

Berlin, Lucia (1936-2004)

• “Stars and Saints”
• “Friends”
• “Tiger Bites”
• “A Manual for Cleaning Women”

Carver, Raymond (1938-1988)

• “A Small, Good Thing” (1983)
• "Kindling” (1999)
• “Vandals” (1999) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “They’re Not Your Husband” (1996) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• "dreams” (2000) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Cathedral” (1981)

Cheever, John (1912-1982)

• “The Swimmer” (1964)
• “The Five-Forty-Eight" (1954)
• “Reunion” (1962) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here

Cisneros, Sandra (b. 1954)

• “Puro Amor” (2015)
• "Dirt” (1996) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Little Miracles, Kept Promises” (1990) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here

Diaz, Junot (b. 1968)

• “Edison, New Jersey” (1996) - Available in Humanities International Complete database. CSCC students click here
• “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” (1995)
• “The Cheater’s Guide to Love” (2012)

Ellison, Ralph (1914-1994)

• “A Party Down At The Square” (1997)

Erdrich, Louise (b. 1954)

• “Saint Marie” (1984)
• "Destiny” (1985)
• “Matchimanito” (1988)
• “Satan: Hijacker of a Planet” (1997)
• “Sister Godzilla” (2001)
• “The Shawl” (2002) – Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here

Far, Sui Sin (1865-1914)

• “Mrs. Spring Fragrance” (1910)

Faulkner, William (1897-1962)

• “A Rose for Emily” (1930)
• “Barn Burning” (1939)
• “Dry September” (1931)
• "Crevasse” (1931)

Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940)

• “The Ice Palace” (1920)
• “Winter Dreams” (1922)
• “Benediction” (1920)

Hemingway, Ernest (1899-1961)

• “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” (1933)
• “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927)
• “My Old Man” (1923)
• “Out of Season” (1923)
• “Up in Michigan” (1923)
• “Big Two-Hearted River” (1925)

Hempel, Amy (b. 1951)

• “At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom” (1986)

Hurston, Zora Neale (1891-1960)

• “The Gilded Six-Bits" (1933) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “The Fire and the Cloud” (1934)
• “Sweat” (1926)

Jackson, Shirley (1916-1965)

• “The Lottery” (1948)
• “Charles” (1948)
• “Paranoia (2013)
• “The Man in the Woods” (2014)

Kincaid, Jamaica (b. 1949)

• “Girl” (1978)
• “What I have Been Doing Lately” (1981) - Available in Humanities International Complete database. CSCC students click here
• “Biography of a Dress” (1993) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here

Lessing, Doris (1919-2013)

• “Wine” (1957)
• “A Woman on a Roof” (1963)
• “To Room Nineteen” (1963)

Le Guin, Ursula (1929-2018)

• “The Island of the Immortals” (2011)
• “The Day Before the Revolution” (1975)
• “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” (1973)
• “The Wife’s Story” (1982)

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia (1927-2014)

• “The Autumn of the Patriarch” (1976)
• “The Saint” (1993) - Available in Humanities International Complete database. CSCC students click here
• “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” (1955)
• “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” (1968)

Morrison, Toni (1931-2019)

• “Sweetness” (2015)
• “Recitatif” (1983)

Munro, Alice (b. 1931)

• “The Love of a Good Woman” (1996)

Oates, Joyce Carol (b. 1938)

• “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1970)
• “How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again” (1969)

O’Brien, Tim (b. 1946)

• “The Things They Carried” (1990)

O’Connor, Flannery (1925-1964)

• “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (1955)
• “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” (1955)- Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “The Crop” (1947) - Available in Humanities International Complete database. CSCC students click here
• “Everything That Rises Must Converge” (1965)
• “Revelation” (1965)

Olsen, Tillie (1912-2007)

• “I Stand Here Ironing” (1956)

Tan, Amy (b. 1952)

• “Peanut’s Fortune” (1991) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Rules of the Game” (1985)

Walker, Alice (b. 1944)

• “Convergence: The Duped Shall Enter Last: But They Shall Enter” (2014) - Available in Humanities International Complete database. CSCC students click here
• “The Welcome Table” (1967) - Available in Literary Reference Center Plus database. CSCC students click here
• “Everyday Use” (1973)
• “The Flowers” (1973)

Yezierska, Anzia (1880-1970)

• “The Fat of the Land” (1920)

Welty, Eudora (1909-2001)

• “Petrified Man” (1939)
• “Cindy and the Joyful Noise” (1930s/1940s) - Available in the Electronic Journal Center. CSCC students click here
• “A Worn Path” (1940)