Throughout American history, short story writers have entertained us by creating brief narratives - short takes, we might call them - of the people and places that have become our national
heritage. Alan Cheuse, the writer whose voice is familiar to all who listen to NPR, has put together a new variety of anthology, one that starts as a collection of wonderful literature but, by
means of Cheuse's selection and commentary, becomes a social history of our nation. Organized chronologically, the anthology has been edited so that each story contributes to building a picture
of America from the earliest stories in the 19th century all the way to World War I. The Greatest Early American Short Stories: People and Places that Came Before Us features stories by
Washington Irving, Louisa May Alcott, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather, and more.
