Peter Taylor: The Complete Stories 1938-1992

For the first time, the complete stories of an American Chekhov, a master chronicler of tradition and transformation in the modern South For the first time, the complete stories of the master chronicler of tradition and transformation in the twentieth-century South are available in a deluxe two-volume Library of America boxed set. Born and raised in Tennessee, Peter Taylor wasthe great chronicler of the American Upper South, capturing its gossipand secrets, its divided loyalties and morally complicatedlegacies in tales of pure-distilled brilliance. Now, for hiscentennial year, the Library of America and acclaimed shortstory writer Ann Beattie present an unprecedented two-volumeedition of Taylor's complete short fiction, all fifty-nine of thestories published in his lifetime in the order in which they werecomposed. Volume one offers twenty-nine early masterpieces,including such classics as "A Spinster's Tale," "What YouHear from 'Em?," "Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time" and "MissLeonora 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 hissingular style and sensibility. Volume two presents thirty stories includingmanyof his most ambitious works, among them "Dean ofMen," a monologue delivered by a middle-agedfather to his long-haired son about the limits ofidealism; "In the Miro District," a parable of the OldSouth's enduring persistence in the New; and "The OldForest," one of Taylor's most celebrated works, the story of a young man who jeopardizes his impending marriage by consorting with a girldeemed beneath his station.Here too are all five of Taylor'sremarkable prose poems, stories in free verse thatdemonstrate that great fiction is, at its highest pitch,a line-by-line, image-by-image high-wire act. Twoof the stories in this volume, "A Cheerful Disposition" and "TheMegalopolitans," are collected here for the first time. LIBRARY OF AMERICAis 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.

About the Author :
Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor (1917-1994) was the author of fifty-nine published stories, several plays, and three novels, including A Summons to Memphis (1986) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning In the Tennessee Country (1994). In 1978 he was awarded the Gold Medal in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1993 the PEN/Malamud Award for his lifetime contribution to the art of the short story. Ann Beattie, editor, is the author of nine novels andeleven short story collections. She is a recipient ofthe PEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award,both given in acknowledgment of her lifetimecontribution to the art of the story. She is theformer Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature andCreative Writing at the University of Virginia, whereone of her colleagues was Peter Taylor.

Review :
“The undisputed master of the short-story form.” --Anne Tyler

“Only Eudora Welty has acomplished a body of fiction so rich, durable, and accessible as Taylor’s.”
--Jonathan Yardley

"The stories in these volumes define their time and place with an unrivaled precision."
--Michael Gorra, in The New York Review of Books