Just Listen Podcast Paul Smethers

Today we examine another one of the three hundred short stories written by the French author Guy de Maupassant, who is featured here on Just Listen several times already but a great favorite of this podcast and considered by many, still, to be the father of the short story. 

Today’s author, Mary Lerner, had her 1916 story “Little Selves” published in the September issue of Atlantic Monthly and was chosen by editor Edward J. O’Brien for The Twenty Best American Short Stories of 1916, as well as the Best American Short Stories of the Century collection edited by John Updike and Katrina Kenison, published in 1999.In his criticism of the story, O’Brien wrote: “Little Selves” by Mary Lerner is little more than a succession of dream pictures portrayed as they cross the consciousness of an old woman who has lived well and is dying happily.  But these pictures are so delicately woven, and so tenderly touched with beauty, that they will not easily be forgotten. I am tempted to say that a success such as this could not be repeated.  It is a happy accident.” 

"Mademoiselle Fifi" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant.  In Brussels in 1882 and in Paris the next year, a book with the same name included it in a collection of Maupassant's short stories. It has been reprinted many times. 

One of the things I most enjoy about presenting stories here is the great fun I find in discovering the personal lives of authors. Not only do our authors present us with brilliant literature, but they also give us glimpses into lives that are indeed majestic and fascinating.  People like Jack London and Edith Wharton certainly come readily to mind, giants in their own time, and for me, H.G. Wells stands out among his peers for both the quantity of his work (over l00 books!) and for the human intricacies of his private life – as colorful as almost any of his books.

 

Today’s story, “The Ledge” by Lawrence Sargent Hall,  won first place in the 1960 O Henry Prize Collection, and has appeared in more than 30 anthologies. 

 

Today’s story, “The Farmer’s Children” by Elizabeth Bishop, an American poetry and short story writer, seems a showcase for the evil stepmother archetype.