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The Contemporary American Short Story (A Study Of The Best American Short Stories, 1950-1959), Gertrude Carrick Curtler

Master's Theses

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and review the contemporary short story by means of an intensive study of The Best American Short Stories of the past ten years. The obvious weakness of the project is that all these two hundred and forty-five short stories were selected as the best of each year by one person, Martha Foley. While she is generally respected as a critic, still her opinions are based on her own taste and judgement alone. It is possible that she leans too much toward avant­-garde stories, or even that she may prefer stories of one …