Best Short Stories of 1917

1917 was the year America found its voice. As the nation entered the Great War, a generation of writers was already crafting the stories that would define American literature. This collection gathers the finest short fiction from that pivotal year, when literary magazines published work that tackled modernity, loss, love, and the collision of old worlds with new ones. These are stories of farms and factories, of soldiers and sweethearts, of the quietly desperate and the defiantly hopeful. You'll find naturalist realism alongside nascent modernism, regional voices speaking to national anxieties, and writers beginning to experiment with the form that would soon revolutionize fiction. The collection captures a profession in transition, a country at war with itself over what it might become. Edward J. O'Brien curated these stories with conviction, defending American short fiction against critics who claimed it had lost its edge. This volume is his proof. It remains a snapshot of writers in their most vital, transitional moment, capturing a year that changed everything.