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Title: Classic American Short Stories

Author: Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Mark Twain

Narrator: William Roberts

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 35 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-27-01

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 13 votes

Genres: Classics, American Literature

Publisher's Summary:

Five great American short story writers, dating from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, are represented here. Different in atmosphere and writing style, they nevertheless caught the mood and concerns of the day in a way that was distinctly American. Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge leaves echoes in the imagination; the stories by Crane and London recall the themes of the Civil War and the Klondike for which they are well known. Twain's humor is to the fore in The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and O. Henry's sharp observation make his neat tales a joy to listen to. An attractive and accessible collection!

© and (P) 2001 NAXOS AudioBooks Ltd.

Editorial Reviews:

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 without wondering how many of our classic authors would find a publisher today. William Roberts is an excellent narrator, 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.

Members Reviews:

Good price and fast delivery

Interesting selection from Barnes and Noble. Good price and fast delivery. Thank you.

Wonderful stories, melodramatic readings; nearly unlistenable

It is almost a crime to subject classic short stories such as these to this kind of audio treatment. Each is introduced with cheap sound effects or maudlin music. The reader is hopelessly overdramatic, mispronounces words like "coquettry" and cheapens the narrative with dripping emotion and weird rhetorical lifts in his voice. Worst of all is the dialogue which, as if in a radio play, is read by a variety of voices, women for female characters, men for male. Accents are over-wrought, turning the dialogue of masters like Twain and Fitzgerald into caricature. These great stories should be read and, if they must be read aloud, done with respect rather than fear that listeners might be bored without cheap theatrics.

Excellent Readings

These are very good readings of some good stories. Particularly impressive is Bierce's classic "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." This story holds up well on re-reading. On one level it's a cool "Twilight Zone" kind of story: man has out of body experience as he's about to be hanged. But on a deeper level, the story is about the interplay of mind and matter and about how to face death.

The O Henry pieces are all amusing, but his stories are a bit superficial and contrived, and I'm not sure they really deserve to dominate this collection. Nor are the Crane and London pieces their best.

But these are good stories, and the readers are excellent.

Five Stars

Beautiful and loved.