Peter Taylor: Complete Stories 1960-1992 (LOA #299) (Library of America Peter Taylor Edition Book 2)

For the first time, the complete stories of the Pulitzer Prize–winning master chronicler of tradition and transformation in the twentieth-century South Born and raised in Tennessee, Peter Taylor was the great chronicler of the American Upper South, capturing its gossip and secrets, its divided loyalties and morally complicated legacies in tales of pure-distilled brilliance. Now, for his centennial year, the Library of America and acclaimed short story writer Ann Beattie present an unprecedented two-volume edition of Taylor’s complete short fiction, all fifty-nine of the stories published in his lifetime in the order in which they were composed. This second volume presents thirty stories including many of his most ambitious works, among them “Dean of Men,” a monologue delivered by a middle-aged father to his long-haired son about the limits of idealism; “In the Miro District,” a parable of the Old South’s enduring persistence in the New; and “The Old Forest,” one of Taylor’s most celebrated works, the story of a young man who jeopardizes his impending marriage by consorting with a girl deemed beneath his station. Here too are all five of Taylor’s remarkable prose poems, stories in free verse that demonstrate that great fiction is, at its highest pitch, a line-by-line, image-by-image high-wire act. Two of the stories in this volume, “A Cheerful Disposition” and “The Megalopolitans,” are collected here for the first time. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries. This second volume of the Library of America edition of Peter Taylors complete short fiction presents thirty stories written from 1960, when the author was forty-three, to 1992, when he was seventy-five. They include many of his most ambitious works, including Dean of Men, a monologue delivered by a middle-aged father to his long-haired son about the limits of idealism. In the Miro District, which concerns the contentious relationship of an ascetic grandfather and his libertine grandson, is a parable of the Old Souths enduring persistence in the New. The Old Forest, one of Taylors most celebrated works, is the story of a young man who jeopardizes his impending marriage by consorting with a girl deemed beneath his station, precipitating, in Taylors words, a struggle of women for power among themselves. Here too are all five of Taylors remarkable prose poems, stories in free verse that demonstrate that great fiction is, at its highest pitch, a line-by-line, image-by-image high-wire act. Two of the stories, A Cheerful Disposition and The Megalopolitans, are collected here for the first time. For the first time, the complete stories of the master chronicler of tradition and transformation in the twentieth-century South. Born and raised in Tennessee, Peter Taylor was the great chronicler of the American Upper South, capturing its gossip and secrets, its divided loyalties and morally complicated legacies in tales of pure-distilled brilliance. Now, for his centennial year, the Library of America and acclaimed short story writer Ann Beattie present an unprecedented two-volume edition of Taylor's complete short fiction, all fifty-nine of the stories published in his lifetime in the order in which they were composed. This first volume offers twenty-nine early masterpieces, including such classics as "A Spinster's Tale," "What You Hear from 'Em'," "Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time" and "Miss Leonora When Last Seen." As a special feature, an appendix in the first volume gathers three stories Taylor published as an undergraduate that show the early emergence of his singular style and sensibility Introduction by Ann Beattie Reservations: A Love Story Nerves An Overwhelming Question There Demons At the Drugstore Two Pilgrims The Throughway At the Art Theater The End of Play A Cheerful Disposition The Decline and Fall of the Episcopal Church in the Year of Our Lord 1952 Mrs. Billingsby's Wine The Elect First Heat In the Waiting Room Dean of Men Daphne's Lover The Real Ghost The Instruction of a Mistress The Hand of Emmagene Three Heroines The Megalopolitans Her Need The Captain's Son In the Miro District The Old Forest The Gift of the Prodigal The Witch of Owl Mountain Springs: An Account of Her Remarkable Powers The Oracle at Stoneleigh Court. In the course of the program, Mr. Taylor reads his unpublished short story, The elect; and Mr. Updike reads his short story, Harv is plowing now from The music school: short stories