Classic American Short Stories Anthology

American Fairy Tales is collection of 12 short stories written in 1901 by L. Frank Baum. Lyman Frank Baum was an American author, chiefly famous for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He wrote 14 novels in the Oz series, plus 41 other novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts.

This classic collection includes seven life-changing stories with ironic twists of fate, which can inform the young about their choices in life and recall the choices older people have made between success and happiness, duty and pleasure, and much more. Includes a short, final summing-up chapter, envoi.

These 13 stories by the author of The Invisible Man "approach the elegance of Chekhov" ( The Washington Post) and provide "early explorations of [Ellison's] lifelong fascination with the 'complex fate' and 'beautiful absurdity' of American identity" (John Callahan).

A civil rights activist and key figure in African American literary history, Alice Dunbar-Nelson made her mark during the emerging Harlem Renaissance. Violets and Other Tales is her debut (included here in full, save for three stories later updated in The Goodness of St. Rocque). The collection includes poetry, short stories, and essays offering a varied examination of class differences, racial identity, oppression, intolerance, and women’s societal roles. The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories assembles 14 of Dunbar’s short works of fiction.

Before Jack Kerouac expressed the spirit of a generation in his 1957 classic On the Road, he spent years figuring out how he wanted to live and, above all, learning how to write. Atop an Underwood brings together more than sixty previously unpublished works that Kerouac wrote before he was twenty-two, ranging from stories and poems to plays and parts of novels, including an excerpt from his 1943 merchant marine novel, The Sea Is My Brother. These writings reveal what Kerouac was thinking, doing, and dreaming during his formative years and reflect his primary literary influences.

Nine stories narrated by Pertie and one by Jeeves. In an American voice for easy listening by Americans with occasional American words used for more obscure English ones with a bit of the halting style of comic dialogue. Number two in the Jeeves series.

In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire - an event that set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment, Prometheus was bound to a rock. But in The Gift of Fire, those chains cease to be, and the great champion of man walks from that immortal prison into present-day South Central Los Angeles. Disheveled and lost, he is thrown in jail, where he meets lifelong criminal Nosome Blane....

"Telling Tales of Civil Warriors" has been adapted and expanded from the Audie Award-winning production of The Civil War Tales of Ambrose Bierce and has been selected by AudioFile magazine as a recipient of it's prestigious Earphone Award.

Telling Tales of Civil Warriors was recorded by Joel Block at The Production Block Studios.

These rib-ticklers include Mark Twain's "The Story of the Old Ram" and "The Story of a Speech"; E. P. Butler's "Pigs Is Pigs"; W. A. Butler's "Nothing to Wear"; Charles Dudley Warner's "How I Killed a Bear"; Eugene Field's "Oon Criteek de Bernhardt", William Livingstone Alden's "Carrie's Comedy", and Edith Wharton's "The Pelican".

Have you heard of the Star Maiden, Old Sally Cato, or Sweet Betsey from Pike? Everyone knows about Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Davy Crockett, But have you heard of these larger-than-life women? From Bess Call, who wrestles any and all challengers, to Molly Cottontail, who can outwit any critter in the woods, to Hekeke, who slays a giant singlehandedly, here are 15 funny, stormy, and always entertaining tall tales of legendary American women. They're as difference as can be, but still cut from the same cloth.

With Nathaniel Hawthorn's "The Maypole of Merrymount", A Magical Reality Chautauqua Show records a pivotal incident in our earliest American history, with legend and lore casting significant light on our origins. Hawthorne's craft allows us to be present for the birth pangs of our wildly adventurous American enterprise.

With "Buckshot Cheney's Last Train Ride" and "A Mysterious Visit", a Magical Reality Chatauqua Show celebrates the comic genius of Americana's premier folk humorist. Mark Twain has been making us laugh for generations and, with "Buckshot Cheney's Last Train Ride" and the preposterous income tax insights of "A Mysterious Visit," American Listener's Theatre presents us with the greatest known antidote to the waves of fear that grip the nation: some belly shaking laughter at the expense of our tormentors.

Two older men are set to oppose each other for sharing a similar interest in business. Once a pie is mashed into the head of one, and a bit of a 'raslin' match is concluded, the elderly men set about making up while planning the largest business in the nation. If their plan works it would change America, but would their wives approve? Will the men even be bold enough to share their idea with their brides?