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  • Published: 1 September 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099528791
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $29.99

Selected Stories



'This is fiction, but it has, for me, the clang of truth' John Updike

'This is fiction, but it has, for me, the clang of truth' John Updike

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY E. L. DOCTOROW

John O'Hara is widely credited with inventing the New Yorker short story, and remains the most-published short story writer in the history of the magazine. Selected from his vast collection of short fiction written over forty years, these refreshingly frank, sparely written stories show him at his best. Exposing a world of bartenders and 'b-girls', car washers and criminals, O'Hara dissects the subtleties that bind humans together and the pressures that separate them.

  • Published: 1 September 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099528791
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $29.99

About the author

John O'Hara

John O'Hara was born in Pennsylvania on 31 January 1905. His first novel, Appointment in Samarra (1934), won him instant acclaim, and he quickly came to be regarded as one of the most prominent writers in America. He won the National Book Award for his novel Ten North Frederick and had more stories published in the New Yorker than anyone in the history of the magazine. His fourteen novels include A Rage to Live, Pal Joey, BUtterfield 8 and From the Terrace. John O'Hara died on 11 April 1970.

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Praise for Selected Stories

This is fiction, but it has, for me, the clang of truth

John Updike

Better than anyone else, he told the truth about his time, the first half of the twentieth century. He was a professional. He wrote honestly and well

John O’Hara on John O’Hara, inscribed on his gravestone

A man who knows exactly what he is writing about and has written it marvellously well

Ernest Hemingway

A social realist obsessed with the peccadilloes of the upper class, but he was considered a daring writer in the Thirties and Forties, his best prose distinguished by its concision, clever dialect and sexual candor. He is credited with inventing the New Yorker short story

Washington Post

A writer of dream-sharp tales, crisp yet dense

Los Angeles Times

John O'Hara's fiction is preeminent for its social verisimilitude

Lionel Trilling

'The range of O'Hara's knowledge of how Americans live was incomparably greater than that of any other fiction writer of his time'

New Yorker