James Nagel, Edison Distonguished Professor of English at the University of Georgia, has edited several collections on the works of Ernest Hemingway, Stephen Crane, and Hamlin Garland, as well as the Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics edition of John Steinbeck's Pastures of Heaven.Tom Quirk is the Catherine Paine Middlebush Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the editor of the Penguin Classics editions of Mark Twain's Tales, Speeches, Essays, and Sketches (1994) and Ambrose Bierce's Tales of Soldiers and Civilians and Other Stories (2000) and co-editor of The Portable American Realism Reader (1997). His other books include Coming to Grips with Huckleberry Finn (1993), Mark Twain: A Study of the Short Fiction (1997) and Nothing Abstract: Investigations in the American Literary Imagination (2001).

• Introduction:The Historical Context by Tom QuirkThe Literary Context by James Nagel Suggestions for Further ReadingChronologyPart I: Regionalism and Local ColorMARK TWAIN, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog"BRET HARTE, "The Luck of Roaring Camp"HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, "The Minister's Housekeeper"GEORGE WASHINGTON CABLE, "Belles Demoiselles Plantation"CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON, "Rodman the Keeper"SARAH ORNE JEWETT, "A White Heron"MARY WILKINS FREEMAN, "A Church Mouse"ROSE TERRY COOKE, "How Celia Changed Her Mind"GRACE ELIZABETH KING, "La Grande Demoiselle"KATE CHOPIN," Athénaïse"ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON, "The Goodness of Saint Rocque"Part II: RealismJOEL CHANDLER HARRIS, "Free Joe and the Rest of the World"SARAH ORNE JEWETT, "Miss Tempy's Watchers"CHARLES W. CHESNUTT, "The Sheriff's Children"HAMLIN GARLAND, "The Return of a Private"AMBROSE BIERCE, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"MARY WILKINS FREEMAN, "The Revolt of 'Mother'"HAROLD FREDERIC, "My Aunt Susan"HENRY JAMES, "The Real Thing"CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, "The Yellow Wallpaper"KATE CHOPIN, "Désirée's Baby"MADELENE YALE WYNNE, "The Little Room"HENRY JAMES, "The Beast in the Jungle"STEPHEN CRANE, "The Blue Hotel"STEPHEN CRANE, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"ABRAHAM CAHAN, "A Providential Match"ALICE DUNBAR-NELSON, "Sister Josepha"CHARLES W. CHESTNUTT, "The Wife of His Youth"ZITKALA-SÄ, "The Trial Path"EDITH WHARTON, "The Other Two"WILLA CATHER, "A Wagner Matinée"WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS, "Editha"MARY AUSTIN, "The Walking Woman"ZONA GALE, "Nobody Rich, Nobody Poor"SUI SIN FAR, "Mrs. Spring Fragrance"Part III: NaturalismSTEPHEN CRANE, "The Men in the Storm"STEPHEN CRANE, "An Experiment in Misery"STEPHEN CRANE, "The Open Boat"HAMLIN GARLAND, "Under the Lion's Paw"THEODORE DREISER, "Curious Shifts of the Poor"JACK LONDON, "The Law of Life"FRANK NORRIS, "A Deal in Wheat"PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR, "The Lynching of Jube Benson"JOHN M. OSKISON, "The Problem of Old Harjo"JACK LONDON, "To Build a Fire"THEODORE DREISER, "The Second Choice"Biographical NotesNotes on the Texts