By Holden DeMayo—Editor, PillartoPost.org, daily online magazine--Library of America is an independent non-profit publisher based out of New York City. Recently, one of its holiday offering caught our attention at PillartoPost.org online magazine. It’s a new coffee tablecloth cover book that’s ideal to add to your holiday season (especially for real hold in your handbook readers). Note: Snarky comments about Brits and Christmas are by me and not the serious editors at the Library of America. My apologies.
Welcome to Library of America's “American Christmas Stories,” a compilation of 59 old, new short stories put together for readers, who have been celebrating Christmas for 150 years or so. The selections by editor of the Library of America are diverse, ingenious and genuinely American Christmas stories. Legendary brit author, Mr. Dickens was not invited. But hello to Mark Twain, W.E.B. Du Bois, Edna Ferber, Dorothy Parker, Pete Hamill, Leo Rosten and Tomas Rivera. In all the All-American team this year is up to 60 contributors. And, all the time you thought Robert Benchley and Christopher Morley were Brits. Ha! We’re an hour smarter than you.
Here’s what is inside the nearly 500 pages of ho, ho, ho:
Ghost stories and crime stories, science fiction, fantasy, westerns, humor, and horror; tales of Christmas morning, trees, gifts, wise men, and family dinners everywhere from New York to Texas to outer space: this anthology is an epiphany, revealing the ways Christmas has evolved over time—and how the spirit of the holiday has remained the same. Ranging from the advent of the American tradition of holiday storytelling in the wake of the Civil War to today, this is the best and widest-ranging anthology of American Christmas stories ever assembled.
Author, editor Connie Willis penned the following introduction: There are stories that will make you laugh (Robert Benchley’s “Christmas Afternoon” and Thomas M. Disch’s “The Santa Claus Compromise”) and stories that will make you think (W.E.B. Du Bois’s “The Sermon in the Cradle” and Grace Paley’s “The Loudest Voice”) and stories that will make you cry (Jacob Riis’s “The Kid Hangs Up His Stocking” and Christopher Morley’s “The Tree That Didn’t Get Trimmed”).
There are old standbys (Mark Twain’s “A Letter from Santa Claus,” William Dean Howells’s “Christmas Every Day,” and Edna Ferber’s “No Room at the Inn”) and familiar authors (Stephen Crane, Shirley Jackson, Katherine Anne Porter, and John Updike), plus some you’ve never heard of. And a couple of hidden treasures nobody’s ever heard of, like Pauline E. Hopkins’s “General Washington” and Mary Agnes Tincker’s “From the Garden of a Friend.”
. . . American Christmas Stories embodies what an anthology of American Christmas stories should be. It’s a book that shows just how the modern American Christmas story came to be—and at the same time it’s a perfect candidate to read aloud from on Christmas Eve.
Contributors
Bret Harte, How Santa Claus Came to Simpson’s Bar
Louisa May Alcott, Kate’s Choice
Mark Twain, A Letter from Santa Claus
J. B. Moore Bristor, Lucy Marshall’s Letter
Mary Agnes Tincker, From the Garden of a Friend
William Dean Howells, Christmas Every Day
John Kendrick Bangs, Thurlow’s Christmas Story
Jack London, Klondike Christmas
Stephen Crane, A Little Pilgrim
Paul Laurence Dunbar, An Old-Time Christmas
Pauline E. Hopkins, General Washington
Jacob Riis, The Kid Hangs Up His Stocking
George Ade, The Set of Poe
O. Henry, A Chaparral Christmas Gift
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, According to Solomon
Edward Lucas White, The Picture Puzzle
Margaret Black, Xmas Party That Prevented a Split in the Church
Dorothy Parker, Inevitable Story of the Snowbound Train
Robert Benchley, Christmas Afternoon
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Sermon in the Cradle
Ben Hecht, Holiday Thoughts
Heywood Broun, Bethlehem, Dec. 25
Christopher Morley, The Tree That Didn’t Get Trimmed
Sherwood Anderson, A Criminal’s Christmas
James Thurber, A Visit from Saint Nicholas
Langston Hughes, One Christmas Eve
Damon Runyon, The Three Wise Guys
Leo Rosten, Mr. K*A*P*L*A*N and the Magi
John Henrik Clarke, Santa Claus is a White Man
John Collier, Back for Christmas
Edna Ferber, No Room at the Inn
John McNulty, Two People He Never Saw Mary
Roberts Rinehart, The Butler’s Christmas Eve
Katherine Anne Porter, A Christmas Story
Abelardo Díaz Alfaro, “Santa Clo” Comes to La Cuchilla
Ray Bradbury, The Gift
Raymond E. Banks, Christmas Trombone
Mildred Clingerman, The Wild Wood
Shirley Jackson, from Raising Demons
Grace Paley, The Loudest Voice
Mari Sandoz, The Christmas of the Phonograph Records
Joan Didion, The Big Rock Candy Figgy Pudding Pitfall
John Updike, The Carol Sing
Tomás Rivera, The Night Before Christmas
Thomas M. Disch, The Santa Claus Compromise
Pete Hamill, The Christmas Kid
Gene Wolfe, The War Beneath the Tree
Cynthia Felice, Track of a Legend
Ed McBain, And All Through the House
George V. Higgins, The Impossible Snowsuit of Christmas Past
Ron Carlson, The H Street Sledding Record
Steve Rasnic Tem, Buzz
Amy Tan, Fish Cheeks
Ann Petry, Checkup
Sandra Cisneros, Three Wise Guys
Connie Willis, Inn
José R. Nieto, Ixchel’s Tears
Nathan Englander, Reb Kringle
Nalo Hopkinson, A Young Candy Daughter
To purchase a copy
HISTORY of LIBRARY OF CONGRESS:
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Saul Bellow, Frederick Douglass to Ursula K. Le Guin, including selected writing of several U.S. presidents. Anthologies and works containing historical documents, criticism, and journalism are also published. Library of America volumes seek to print authoritative versions of works; include extensive notes, chronologies, and other back matter; and are known for their distinctive physical appearance and characteristics. Although, LOA is non-profit the volumes it publishes are for sale to the public, even Brits. :)
CLICHE CORNER: OMG? NO DICKENS.
Nope. This is a collection of American writers, but for those who cannot divorce yourself from Dickens CLICK HERE for "A Christmas Carol."
And, for the traditional poem CLICK HERE "The Night Before Christmas." By American Clement Moore.
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