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Jean Stafford (1915–1979)

Author of The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford

27+ Works 1,214 Members 26 Reviews 3 Favorited

About the Author

Includes the names: Jean Stafford, Jean Stafford

Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)

Works by Jean Stafford

Associated Works

The Best American Short Stories of the Century (2000) — Contributor — 1,552 copies
Short Story Masterpieces (1954) — Contributor — 675 copies
The World of the Short Story: A 20th Century Collection (1986) — Contributor — 461 copies
The Granta Book of the American Short Story (1992) — Contributor — 368 copies
Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker (2000) — Contributor — 354 copies
New York Stories (Everyman's Pocket Classics) (2011) — Contributor, some editions — 152 copies
Stories from The New Yorker, 1950 to 1960 (1958) — Contributor — 80 copies
200 Years of Great American Short Stories (1975) — Contributor — 68 copies
55 Short Stories from The New Yorker, 1940 to 1950 (1949) — Contributor — 60 copies
The Vintage Book of American Women Writers (2011) — Contributor — 56 copies
The Experience of the American Woman (1978) — Contributor — 46 copies
The Seasons of Women: An Anthology (1995) — Contributor — 46 copies
The Virago Book of Such Devoted Sisters (1993) — Contributor — 44 copies
Fifty Best American Short Stories 1915-1965 (1965) — Contributor — 36 copies
The Secret Self: A Century of Short Stories by Women (1995) — Contributor — 33 copies
Love Stories (1975) — Contributor — 18 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1965 (1965) — Contributor — 17 copies
Twenty-Nine Stories (1960) — Contributor — 13 copies
The best of the Best American short stories, 1915-1950 (1975) — Contributor — 10 copies
Moderne Amerikaanse verhalen (1982) — Contributor — 9 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1949 (1949) — Contributor — 7 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1947 (1947) — Contributor — 7 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1951 (1951) — Contributor — 6 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1952 (1952) — Contributor — 5 copies
Life Styles (2001) — Contributor — 5 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1958 (1958) — Contributor — 5 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1954 (1954) — Contributor — 4 copies
Moderne Amerikaanse verhalen — Contributor — 3 copies

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1915: Jean Stafford - Resources and General Discussion in Literary Centennials (July 2015)

Reviews

LOA introduces a long forgotten author in Jean Stafford with her most famous novels, 3 of these complete. Sadly, her work will remain in the shadows as her work is starkly too much of the oddly short period of the H James venue. Unable to expand beyond this perspective, her work devotes on a narrow concept of exploring the psychological which leaves much to be desired.
 
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walterhistory | Nov 9, 2023 |
This book shouldn't have been the slog for me that it was. I love short stories generally and Jean Stafford has a very rich vocabulary and dense writing style that makes paying attention to what you are reading, a must.

I felt strongly that reading Jean Stafford was like reading a pre-cursor to more modern prose styles like Joyce Carol Oates, and indeed, Oates wrote a New York Times piece defending the works of Jean Stafford and pointing out how neglected her works are...https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/28/books/adventures-in-abandonment.html?pagewanted=all

All the same, this was a slog. While there were many stories that I enjoyed, there were also many that seemed to have similar character types from story to story and the old fashioned language of her stories was, at first, interesting because it was unusual to me, but later became a bit of a drag. It was a bit like picking up The Lord of the Rings again after not having read it for 20 years...once it had been new and even exciting to me at 10 years old, but now I feel like I am reading an archaic form of english.

So I am giving it 3 stars and an "I liked it" but it was not the best Pulitzer winner I have read so far and I doubt I will ever want to go back and read it again. I also doubt I will purposely pick up anything else by Jean Stafford any time soon.
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DarrinLett | 8 other reviews | Aug 14, 2022 |
Stafford arranged her Pulitzer-winning collected stories geographically. All of the stories appear to be set in places where Stafford lived or spent a considerable amount of time, and consequently all of the stories have a strong sense of place.

The stories in the first section, “Innocents Abroad,” are set in continental Europe, and mostly in Germany. The most memorable story for me in this section is “The Echo and the Nemesis,” about a friendship between to expat college students in Germany that turns into something worthy of The Twilight Zone.

Section two, “The Bostonians and Other Manifestations of the American Scene,” features stories set in New England. The story that stood out to me in this section is “A Country Love Story,” about the disintegration of a May-December marriage after the couple moves to the country for the husband’s health. Many aspects of this story reminded me of Middlemarch.

The third section, “Cowboys and Indians, and Magic Mountains,” contains stories set in the Western U.S. In this section, “A Reading Problem” will resonate with avid readers. The story tells how a young girl finds a place where she can read alone to her heart’s content, and then loses it.

The stories in the concluding section, “Manhattan Island,” are set in New York. “Cops and Robbers” is perhaps the most heartbreaking story in the collection, as it depicts the disintegration of a marriage with a five-year-old child used as a proxy.

This is a collection to be savored rather than rushed through. Although it took me several weeks to read it, Stafford’s exquisite use of language and her attention to detail provided the motivation I needed to read the entire collection.
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½
 
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cbl_tn | 8 other reviews | Aug 16, 2020 |
This little book set in motion the idea for my senior history thesis -- how LHO's mother and her mental capacity affected her ability to raise children and how it affected LHO and his mental stability.
 
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amandanan | Jun 6, 2020 |

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Works
27
Also by
34
Members
1,214
Popularity
#21,145
Rating
3.8
Reviews
26
ISBNs
49
Languages
4
Favorited
3

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