The Best American Short Stories

The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in contemporary American literature.

1915-1941: Origin and early history under Edward O'Brien
The series began in 1915, when Edward O'Brien edited his selection of the previous year's stories. This first edition was serialized in a magazine; however, it caught the attention of the publishing company Small, Maynard & Company, which published subsequent editions until 1926, when the title was transferred to Dodd, Mead and Company.

The time appeared to be a propitious one for such a collection. The most popular magazines of the day featured short fiction prominently and frequently; the best authors were well-known and well-paid. More importantly, there was a nascent movement toward higher standards and greater experimentation among certain American writers. O'Brien capitalized on this moment. He was deeply and vocally skeptical of the value of commercial short fiction, which tended to the formulaic and sentimental; he insisted, in introduction after introduction, on the need for a consciously literary development of the short story. He used his selections to reinforce this call. Over the years of his editorship, he drew attention to two generations of American authors, from Sherwood Anderson and Edna Ferber to Richard Wright and Irwin Shaw. Perhaps the most significant instance of O'Brien's instincts involves Ernest Hemingway; O'Brien anthologized that author's "My Old Man" when it had not even been published yet, and was, moreover, instrumental in finding an American publisher for In Our Time. (He also dedicated the 1923 edition to the young author, while misspelling his name “Hemenway.”) O'Brien was known to work indefatigably: he claimed to read around 8,000 stories a year, and his editions contained lengthy tabulations of stories and magazines, ranked on a scale of three stars (representing O'Brien's notion of their "literary permanence").

Though the series attained a degree of fame and popularity, it was never universally accepted. Fans of the period's popular fiction often found his selections precious or willfully obscure. On the other hand, many critics who accepted "literary" fiction objected to O'Brien's occasionally strident and pedantic tone. After his death, for instance, The New Yorker compared him to the recently deceased editor of the Social Register, suggesting that they shared a form of snobbery.

1941-1978: Editorship of Martha Foley
O'Brien died of a heart attack in London in 1941. He was replaced as editor of the series by Martha Foley, founder and former editor of Story magazine. O'Brien, who had once called Story one of the most important events in literary history since the publication of Lyrical Ballads, presumably would have approved the choice. Foley edited the publication, at first alone and then with the assistance of her son, David Burnett, until 1977. These years witnessed both the ascendancy and eclipse of the type of short story favored by O'Brien: writers as diverse as John Cheever, Bernard Malamud, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tillie Olsen offered sharply observed, generally realistic stories that eschewed trite conventions. At the same time, Foley evinced some degree of awareness of the new currents in fiction. Donald Barthelme, for instance, was chosen for The School in 1976. Foley also attended to the rise of so-called minority literature, dedicating the 1975 volume to Leslie Marmon Silko, although it has been argued that the series was less perceptive in this area than it might have been.

Since 1978
After Foley's death, the publisher—by that time, Houghton Mifflin—elected to take the series in a new direction. Under the guidance of a series editor (Shannon Ravenel 1978–1990, Katrina Kenison 1991–2006, Heidi Pitlor 2007– ), a different writer of reputation would select the contents and introduce the volume each year. The editor would choose the best twenty stories from 120 stories recommended by the series editor. This format has been followed since, although the guest editor has occasionally gone beyond what the series editor recommended (e.g., John Gardner in 1982).

In 2002, Houghton-Mifflin made the series part of its broader Best American series.

The Best American Short Stories of the Century; 100 Years of The Best American Short Stories
In 2000, John Updike selected 22 unabridged stories from the first 84 annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories, and the result is The Best American Short Stories of the Century. The expanded CD audio edition includes a new story from The Best American Short Stories 1999 to round out the century. In 2015, Lorrie Moore served as the guest editor for a centennial anthology from the series, 100 Years of The Best American Short Stories.

1978–89

 * 1978: Ted Solotaroff
 * 1979: Joyce Carol Oates
 * 1980: Stanley Elkin
 * 1981: Hortense Calisher
 * 1982: John Gardner
 * 1983: Anne Tyler
 * 1984: John Updike
 * 1985: Gail Godwin
 * 1986: Raymond Carver
 * 1987: Ann Beattie
 * 1988: Mark Helprin
 * 1989: Margaret Atwood

1990–99

 * 1990: Richard Ford
 * 1991: Alice Adams
 * 1992: Robert Stone
 * 1993: Louise Erdrich
 * 1994: Tobias Wolff
 * 1995: Jane Smiley
 * 1996: John Edgar Wideman
 * 1997: Annie Proulx
 * 1998: Garrison Keillor
 * 1999: Amy Tan

2000–09

 * 2000: E. L. Doctorow
 * 2001: Barbara Kingsolver
 * 2002: Sue Miller
 * 2003: Walter Mosley
 * 2004: Lorrie Moore
 * 2005: Michael Chabon
 * 2006: Ann Patchett
 * 2007: Stephen King
 * 2008: Salman Rushdie
 * 2009: Alice Sebold

2010–19

 * 2010: Richard Russo
 * 2011: Geraldine Brooks
 * 2012: Tom Perrotta
 * 2013: Elizabeth Strout
 * 2014: Jennifer Egan
 * 2015: T. C. Boyle
 * 2016: Junot Díaz
 * 2017: Meg Wolitzer
 * 2018: Roxane Gay
 * 2019: Anthony Doerr

Since 2020

 * 2020: Curtis Sittenfeld
 * 2021: Jesmyn Ward
 * 2022: Andrew Sean Greer
 * 2023: Min Jin Lee
 * 2024: Lauren Groff

Selected works

 * The Best American Short Stories 1986
 * The Best American Short Stories 1987
 * The Best American Short Stories 1988
 * The Best American Short Stories 1989
 * The Best American Short Stories 1990
 * The Best American Short Stories 1991
 * The Best American Short Stories 1992
 * The Best American Short Stories 1993 
 * The Best American Short Stories 1994 
 * The Best American Short Stories 1995
 * The Best American Short Stories 1996
 * The Best American Short Stories 1997
 * The Best American Short Stories 1998
 * The Best American Short Stories 1999
 * The Best American Short Stories 2000
 * The Best American Short Stories 2001
 * The Best American Short Stories 2002
 * The Best American Short Stories 2003
 * The Best American Short Stories 2004
 * The Best American Short Stories 2005
 * The Best American Short Stories 2006
 * The Best American Short Stories 2007
 * The Best American Short Stories 2008
 * The Best American Short Stories 2009
 * The Best American Short Stories 2010
 * The Best American Short Stories 2011
 * The Best American Short Stories 2012
 * The Best American Short Stories 2013
 * The Best American Short Stories 2014
 * The Best American Short Stories 2015
 * The Best American Short Stories 2016
 * The Best American Short Stories 2017
 * The Best American Short Stories 2018
 * The Best American Short Stories 2019
 * The Best American Short Stories 2020
 * The Best American Short Stories 2021
 * The Best American Short Stories 2022
 * The Best American Short Stories 2023