In his Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Pierce defined a novel as “a short story padded.” This is an all too apt description. The inability to prune a story to its essential story is an unfortunate quality shared by many modern writers and the primary reason that bookshelves are filled with bloated novels. William Faulkner once wondered if writers didn’t become novelists after having failed at the short story, “the most demanding form after poetry.” Perhaps this is the reason there are even fewer great short stories than there are great novels.
Since I don’t presume to know what works would fill the category of “greatest” short fiction, the following list of short stories is not intended to be representative of the best or most profound works in a particular category. These are merely my favorite 25 stories (at least the ones I could remember) and not necessarily the ones I would argue are the best. (Yes, I know. This is a bit of a cop-out.)
Except for the first entry—which I would argue is one of the greatest of all times—the list is in no particular order. Links to the stories are provided whenever the stories are available online.