Selected Stories

Ring Lardner's humor, quirky imagination, and ear for the American vernacular endeared him to such formidable critics as... (more)

Ring Lardner's humor, quirky imagination, and ear for the American vernacular endeared him to such formidable critics as Hemingway, Fitzgerald, V. S. Pritchett, and Virginia Woolf. A newspaperman who began as a sports reporter and almost accidentally stumbled into short-story writing, Lardner meticulously captured the way Americans really speak. In You Know Me Al (1916), he created one of the most enduring characters in American fiction, the semi-literate baseball player Jack Keefe. (less)

(more)

Twenty-eight stories set in farms and small towns around Lake Huron. They include Dance of the Happy Shades, on a retire... (more)

Twenty-eight stories set in farms and small towns around Lake Huron. They include Dance of the Happy Shades, on a retired piano teacher, and Walker Brothers Cowboy, on two children making calls with their salesman father during the 1930s depression. (less)

(more)

(more)

(more)