| John Adams | Destruction of the Tea in Boston |
| Gertrude Atherton | The Striding Place |
| Mary Austin | The Scavengers |
| Moe Berg | Pitchers and Catchers |
| J. Herman Banning | The Day I Sprouted Wings |
| P. T. Barnum | In France |
| Ambrose Bierce | The Eyes of the Panther
A Horseman in the Sky
The Moonlit Road |
| Elizabeth M. Bisgood | Twelve Strangers in the Night |
| Elizabeth Bishop | Was It in His Hand? |
| Randolph Bourne | Mon Amie |
| Paul Bowles | All Parrots Speak |
| Alice Brown | Golden Baby |
| Raymond Carver | Kindling |
| Willa Cather | The Sentimentality of William Tavener
A Wagner Matinée
When I Knew Stephen Crane |
| George Catlin | “There is no end to the amusements of Paris” |
| Raymond Chandler | I’ll Be Waiting |
| Charles W. Chesnutt | Baxter’s Procrustes
The Bouquet
The Doll |
| Kate Chopin | After the Winter
Désireé’s Baby
A Morning Walk
A Respectable Woman |
| Irvin S. Cobb | Cobb Fights It Over Again |
| Stephen Crane | An Experiment in Misery
When Man Falls, a Crowd Gathers
See also: Cather |
| Gregory Djanikian | Immigrant Picnic |
| John Dos Passos | Paul Bunyan |
| Theodore Dreiser | A Certain Oil Refinery
W. L. S. |
| John M. Duncan | A Virginia Barbecue |
| Edith Maude Eaton | Mrs. Spring Fragrance |
| Edward Field | World War II |
| F. Scott Fitzgerald | The Cut-Glass Bowl
Porcelain and Pink |
| Mary Wilkins Freeman | Luella Miller |
| John Kenneth Galbraith | In Goldman, Sachs We Trust |
| Ellen Glasgow | The Shadowy Third |
| Susan Glaspell | The Hossack Murder |
| Pete Hamill | Up the Stairs with Cus D’Amato |
| Dashiell Hammett | Arson Plus |
| Nathaniel Hawthorne | The Ambitious Guest
Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
The Gray Champion
The Wives of the Dead |
| Lafcadio Hearn | Some Strange Experience: The Reminiscences of a Ghost-Seer |
| O. Henry | The Duel
The Ransom of Red Chief |
| Bettye Rice Hughes | A Negro Tourist in Dixie |
| Zora Neale Hurston | Story in Harlem Slang |
| Washington Irving | The Christmas Dinner
The Devil and Tom Walker |
| Shirley Jackson | Charles (Bonus story: ‘Trial by Combat’)
The Night We All Had Grippe |
| Henry James | An English New Year
Paste
A Problem |
| William James | On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake |
| Sarah Orne Jewett | Aunt Cynthy Dallett
Going to Shrewsbury
Tom’s Husband |
| Elia Kazan | Audience Tomorrow: Preview in New Guinea |
| Ring Lardner | Where Do You Get That Noise? |
| A. J. Liebling | Horsefeathers Swathed in Mink |
| Abraham Lincoln | Autobiography Written for Campaign
Remarkable Case of Arrest for Murder
See also: Stowe, Tolstoy, Ward |
| Jack London | The Apostate
To Build a Fire
War |
| Rudyard Kipling | An Interview with Mark Twain |
| Ward McAllister | Success in Entertaining |
| H. L. Mencken | The Nature of Liberty |
| Ana Menéndez | Celebrations of Thanksgiving: Cuban Seasonings |
| John Muir | A Wind-Storm in the Forests |
| George Jean Nathan | Baiting the Umpire |
| Flannery O'Connor | The Train |
| Eugene O'Neill | Tomorrow |
| Susan Orlean | Shiftless Little Loafers |
| Edgar Allan Poe | The Cask of Amontillado
The Domain of Arnheim
Hop-Frog |
| Channing Pollock | Stage Struck |
| Katherine Anne Porter | The Charmed Life |
| Ernie Pyle | “This One Is Captain Waskow” |
| Jane Rice | The Refugee |
| Waverly Root | The Flying Fool |
| Berton Roueché | The Fog |
| William Howard Russell | Celebration in Charleston
The Union Army Retreats |
| Jack Snow | Midnight |
| Wallace Stevens | Sunday Morning |
| Harriet Beecher Stowe | Abraham Lincoln |
| Annie D. Tallent | Bill of Fare on the Plains |
| Mary Church Terrell | What It Means to be Colored in the Capital of the United States |
| Celia Thaxter | A Memorable Murder |
| Henry David Thoreau | A Winter Walk |
| James Thurber | A Box to Hide In
The Lady on the Bookcase
You Could Look It Up |
| Leo Tolstoy | Tolstoi Holds Lincoln World’s Greatest Hero |
| Mark Twain | The Christmas Fireside (for Good Little Boys and Girls)
A Dog's Tale
Hunting the Deceitful Turkey
Jim Baker’s Blue-Jay Yarn
A Presidential Candidate
Queen Victoria’s Jubilee
See also: Kipling |
| Lew Wallace | Attack on Fort Donelson |
| Artemus Ward | Artemus Ward on His Visit to Abe Lincoln |
| George Washington | Account of the Battle of Monmouth |
| Nathanael West | Business Deal |
| Edith Wharton | The Eyes
A Journey
Kerfol
Xingu |
| Thornton Wilder | Chefoo, China
“Spiritus Valet” |
| Madeline Yale Wynne | The Little Room |
| Howard Zinn | Finishing School for Pickets |
