The Greatest Short Stories of All Time RANKED

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2:52Hellthale Heart, one of his greatest stories, not my favorite, but still a great, great story with some of the most wonderful and quotable horror lines in all of literature. Have to give it an S. If only for the line, you may think me mad, but you'll think so no longer when I tell you how I disposed of the body. What a great line. What would I give? The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs, I am a ghost story fanatic and the ghost story of Fischionato and the Monkey's Paw is the greatest ghost story ever. It's kind of the castle blanca of ghost stories. It's the only thing, Jacob sort one other story that gets enthalyzed sometimes, but he never wrote anything like it. What's great about the Monkey's Paw is it's incredibly condensed. It's only like three pages long, but it gives you an entire social milieu in that story, makes you completely sympathetic to the people involved, and it's absolutely terrifying. The Gift of the Magi by O'Henry of Famous Christmas Story, 1905, I'm giving that an A. It's a great, great story. I'm only giving it an A, so I don't give

3:55everything an S, but it's a wonderful story and it's just very touching, very movie. Give it an S. I'm sorry, I'm giving it an S. I take it back. The Body by Stephen King, that's the one on which you'll stand by me. The movie stand by me was based. That's a good story. That's not my favorite of his stories, but it is a good solid story. I'll give it a B. The necklace by Guidam Opuson. Guidam Opuson is a wonderful writer. People don't read him as much as they used to, but that's a great story. I got a, I'm sorry, I got to give that an S. These are actually classic stories, 1884. I don't even want to tell you about it, but it is a wonderful, wonderful tale. Guidam Opuson was kind of the French O'Henry, surprise endings, really interesting stuff. Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway, I think his greatest work is in his short work. That is not one of my favorite of his stories. I'll give it a B. You know what I love? If you go back to his earliest collections, one of them I think is called Men Without Women, his little paragraphs that he wrote just a

4:57hone his prose to personal, to this perfect, tight prose that he wanted to create. One of the greatest stylists in all of literature was Hemingway. Not one of the great thinkers and so his work kind of peedered out as he went on, but it is like White Elephants, this is not one of his best, but his early short stories are terrific. The Yellow Wall paper, another ghost story, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a B, which means good. That's a good thing. It's a ghost story and feminist love it for what it has to say. I think it's a good story. I got nothing against it, even though it is a feminist story. A currents at Al Creek Bridge by Ambrose Beers, also a beam, he's really good. That was made into a wonderful Twilight Zone episode and really shocked me when I saw it and then I read it because I saw it on Twilight Zone just excellent, 1890. Ambrose Beers, really an interesting writer. Not one of my favorite writers, so I can't give it like it's not one of the greatest of all sorts, but it's really, really good. The Legend of Sleepy

5:57Hollow, Washington Irving, 1820, it's a good story and it's a classic story. So when you give it a three, you know, it's like I'm giving it, it's saying it's a good classic story. It's almost a contradiction in terms of it's a classic story. It's probably an S story, but as a classic story, among classic stories, it's a B story because it wasn't that good a writer Irving, but it is really well imagined. Bartleby the Scrivener Herman Melville 1853, that's a work of genius. It's an S story and I'm not somebody who complains about Moby Dick all the time because I think it's too long and has a lot of, it could be cut to 130 pages, but Bartleby is a great story and really shocking existential story. The story of your life, Ted Chang, I'm so glad you included this in here, Tom. The story of your life is the story on which arrival is based. An arrival is a very, very good science fiction movie. The story is another level better. I mean, it is just a great story and that

6:59is he's by a living writer, but I got to give it an S. That is a classic story even though you're not really allowed to be classic until you're dead, but the story of your life is a brilliant story. If you've seen arrival, you know it's about the arrival of aliens on the planet and what language means and what it's trying to learn their language. I think I love that story. Turn to the screw Henry James, one of the greatest, it's actually hardly a short stories in the vella, but that is you've probably seen it. It's been made into a movie a hundred times. The best movie made of it was the innocence in the 60s with Deborah Carr. It is again one of the most classic ghost stories. So I just, I just reread it about two months ago and it still holds up. Henry James is a, what's the word a manored writer and so it's a manored, you know, it's manored, but it's, it's wonderful. It's still not as scary as the monkeys paw, but it is, but Henry James is one of the greatest of writers. James Joyce, the dead, also a wonderful story and one of, if you can't read

8:03your listies, if that's too hard for you, the dead is a wonderful straightforward story. It has one of the great last paragraphs in history. Gotta give it an S. Sorry, this just can be a lot of S. These are classic stories. It's kind of ridiculous not to give a classic story an S. If it's lasted this long, it's probably great. Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis, again, one of the great classics of literature about a guy who wakes up and finds he's a cockroach. That's the story. That's the whole story, but it's just, it's just wonderful. That is a wonderful story. Most dangerous game, if you like adventure stories, it's the classic adventure story. You probably know what it's about, but I don't want to give it away, but Richard Connell, 1924, great ending, great last line. Absolutely exciting. It's been made into a movie, but it's not really enough there to make it into a really good movie, but it is a wonderful, wonderful, sure story. The killer is by Ernst Samueling. That is one of his great stories. I also made into a good movie with Bert Lancaster, but that is one of his greatest stories. And I love that story. The Birds by Daphne Jamoury, just discussing this with my beloved wife,

9:04the Birds is a wonderful story and it's better. The movie has a lot of flaws, but the movie is good, but the story is great and not only is the story great, but the collection that contains that story and also contains the basis of the movie Don't Look Now, which I think is also called Don't Look Now, and another story that I can't even tell you what it's about because it's a good way. Daphne Jamoury was a wonderful writer and her short stories are her best work. I give it an A, I don't know, you know, it's, I can't put it up on like on some of the level of these others, but she's a wonderful writer and if you haven't read her, read Rebecca and read your short stories because they are great. Good men is hard to find Flannery O'Connor. Catholics love Flannery O'Connor. I like Flannery O'Connor. I think she is a good writer and she is also the foreign in the side of those prissy little Christians who believe that you can't write about sacks and death and evil in your stories. She said, she wrote an essay where she said, the subject of fiction is anything that can happen in life and anything that has to do with life. 310 to Huma, Elmore Leonard,

10:10it's a B story, which is good and he was a good, so good western by the great detective writer, Elmore Leonard, the minority report by Philip K. Dick. So Philip K. Dick is an interesting thing. If there's a story, I don't, I think his laundry list has been made into movies, you know, Blade Runner being the most famous of them all, but his ideas are great. He's not a great writer. I always find him very difficult to read, so I'll give it a B because his ideas are great and the idea of the minority report is great. I'm sure you've seen the film The Swimmer by John Chiever, also a good story of B story, 1964 that was made into a Bert Lancaster. Not a Bert Lancaster films here, but that's a really good story as well. I'll give that an A, I think, instead of a B. That's, I'm not a big John Chiever fan, but that is his best story by far. So good stories in there. And you know, short stories get short shrift as a word. A lot of people don't read them. And one of the problems with short stories is they often come in anthologies of the writer.

11:11And if you read, you know, three short stories by even a great writer, it can become too much. But if you get a collection of great short stories and those stories are in them, read them all because those are all really, really good stories. And so much better than my watching TikTok videos, or you're watching TikTok videos, or anyone watching TikTok videos, read those stories, they will improve your life. For more short stories and longer stories, like and subscribe, and subscribe to the Andrew Clayvin Show, wherever you get your podcasts.