Greatest Short Story Writers

The Top Ten
1 Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American ...read more.
2 Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. ...read more.
3 Flannery O'Connor
4 Alice Munro
5 D.H. Lawrence
6 F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American novelist and short story writer, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age.
7 Saki (H.H. Munro)
8 Arthur Conan Doyle

Almost all of the Sherlock Holmes stories were short stories...

9 Karen Blixen
10 Franz Kafka Franz Kafka was a German-language writer of novels and short stories who is widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature.
The Contenders
11 Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced ...read more.
12 Stephen King Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. Many of his most well-known novels include Carrie, It, The Shinning, The Stand, Misery, The Dark Tower series, and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which was later ...read more.
13 John Updike
14 Howard Phillips Lovecraft
15 Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. He worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, and mystery fiction. ...read more.
16 J.D. Salinger Jerome David "J.D." Salinger (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010) was an American writer who won acclaim early in life. He led a very private life for more than a half-century. He published his final original work in 1965 and gave his last interview in 1980.
17 Guy de Maupassant Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a French writer, remembered as a master of the short story form, and as a representative of the naturalist school of writers, who depicted human lives and destinies and social forces in disillusioned and often pessimistic terms. ...read more.
18 Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges, was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish-language literature.
19 Jack London John Griffith "Jack" London, born John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and ...read more.
20 G.K. Chesterton
21 Harry Turtledove
22 Joseph Conrad
23 Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899 – 2 July 1977) was a Russian-American novelist and entomologist. His first nine novels were in Russian, and he achieved international prominence after he began writing English prose. ...read more.
24 Katherine Mansfield
25 Shirley Jackson
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