Classic American Short Stories

Being a "classic" doesn't automatically make a story good, and one can't listen to the second-rate Jack London dog story and four predictable O.Henry stories that make up three of this collection's four sides without wondering how many of our classic authors would find a publisher today. William Roberts is an excellent reader, and given a true classic, like Bierce's "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" or Twain's "Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," he achieves the subtlety and concentrated dramatic force that are the hallmarks of the American short story. But with so many choices available in the canon of American short fiction, it's a mystery why this anthology would have so many uninspired selections. D.A.W. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine