This collection offers twenty-one stories from America, a nation which has always been particularly at home with this form, and which has produced many of its masters. Some of the stories included - those by Poe, James and Hemingway for example - are already widely known. Some will be less familiar to the English reader. Ranging from Washington Irving to John Updike, via Ambrose Bierce, Willa Cather and Bernard Malamud, this is an excellent and entertaining introduction to the rich diversity of pleasures that the best American short stories can offer.