When The Stories of John Cheever was originally published, it became an immediate national bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize.  In the years since, it has become a classic.  Vintage Books is proud to reintroduce this magnificent collection.

Here are sixty-one stories that chronicle the lives of what has been called "the greatest generation."  From the early wonder and disillusionment of city life in "The Enormous Radio" to the surprising discoveries and common mysteries of suburbia in "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" and "The Swimmer," Cheever tells us everything we need to know about "the pain and sweetness of life."

The first authorised selected collection of the twentieth-century's most influential short story writer. SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY JULIAN BARNES Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, John Cheever - variously referred to as 'Ovid in Ossining' and the 'Chekhov of the suburbs' - forever altered the landscape of contemporary literature. In a career that spanned nearly fifty years, his short stories, often published in the New Yorker, gave voice to the repressed desires and smouldering disappointments of 1950s America as it teetered on the edge of spiritual awakening and sexual liberation in the ensuing Sixties. Up until now, John Cheever's stories have only been available in Collected Stories, but with Julian Barnes' selection we have the first fully authorised introduction to Cheever's work. Satirical, fantastical, sad and transcendent, these are stories that speak directly to the heart of human experience, and remain a testament to the wit and vision of one of the most important and influential short story writers of the twentieth century.

What's the worst another drink could do? John Cheever pours out our most sociable of vices, and hands it to us in a highball. From the calculating teenager who raids her parents' liquor cabinet, only to drown her sorrows in it, to the suburban swimmer withering away with every plunge he takes, these are stories suffused with beauty, sadness, and the gathering storm of a bender well-done. Seen through the gin-lacquered looking glass of Cheever's writing, your next drink may have you reaching for a lime and soda instead. Selected from the book Collected Stories by John Cheever VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human Also in the Vintage Minis series: Swimming by Roger Deakin Eating by Nigella Lawson Calm by Tim Peaks Love by Jeanette Winterson

In the novel that established his reputation as an unparalleled observer of the dialectic between compassion and decorum, John Cheeverfollowed the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, Massachusetts. There are the stories of Cap-tain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea-dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses's adoring and errant youngerbrother, Coverly. Tragic and funny, ribald and splendidly picaresque,THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLE is a family narrative in the traditions of Trollope, Dickens, and Henry James.

In this simultaneously hilarious and poignant companion volume to The Wapshot Chronicle, the members of the Wapshot family of St. Botolphs drift far from their New England village into the demented caprices of the mighty, the bad graces of the IRS, and the humiliating abyss of adulterous passion.

A novel of large and tender vision, The Wapshot Scandal is filled with pungent characters and outrageous twists of fate, and, above all, with Cheever's luminous compassion for all his hapless fellow prisoners of human nature.

Discover John Cheever's quirky psychological novel that is the perfect book club read. Ezekiel Farragut is a college professor, a drug-addict and a murderer. Locked in Falconer State Penitentiary, he struggles through tormenting visits from his wife, the burden of memory and guilt, and the brutal monotony of his surroundings to retain his humanity, eventually finding the possibility of redemption through an affair with a fellow prisoner. Considered by many to be Cheever's masterpiece, Falconer is a tour de force from one of America's greatest storytellers.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

In an idyllic American village, elderly romantic Lemuel Sears still has it in him to fall wildly in love with strangers of both sexes. But Sears's paradise is under threat; the pond he loves is being fouled by unscrupulous polluters involved in organised crime. Can Sears thwart the monstrous aspects of late-twentieth-century civilisation and save his beloved village? Cheever's wry fable of modern American is interlaced with musings on everything from the etiquette of supermarket queues to the evolution of the ice-skate.

John Cheever, novelist, short-story writer, and winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, was "an American master" ("The Boston Globe"). He was also a prolific writer of letters, sending as many as thirty in a week.

These letters, culled from thousands written to famous writers, his family, friends, and lovers, paint an intimate and surprising self-portrait that is as vivid as any character Cheever invented.

Edited and annotated by his son Benjamin, Cheever's letters trace his development as a writer and as a man. They reveal him to be complex, flawed, and full of contradictions. On display are not just his ambitions and weaknesses, or his cloaked bisexuality, but the evolution of his wit and style -- and most of all, his immense love of life.

In these journals, the experiences of one of the most renowned twentieth-century American writers come to life with fascinating, wholly revealing detail.
John Cheever's journals provide peerless insights into the creation of his novels and stories. But they are equally the record of a complex, often dark, always closely observed inner world. No American writer of comparable stature has left such an unreservedly revealing and moving account of himself: his family life, his literary life, and his emotional life. The final word from one of modern America's great writers, "The Journals of John Cheever" provides a powerful and beautiful capstone to a towering oeuvre.

Eliot Nailles loves his wife and son to distraction; Paul Hammer is a bastard named afer a common household tool. Neighbours in Bullet Park, the two become fatefully liked by the mysterious binding power of their names. Sharp and funny, BULLET PARK is a hymn to the dubious normality of the American suburb.

In these journals, the experiences of one of the most renowned twentieth-century American writers come to life with fascinating, wholly revealing detail.John Cheever's journals provide peerless insights into the creation of his novels and stories. But they are equally the record of a complex, often dark, always closely observed inner world. No American writer of comparable stature has left such an unreservedly revealing and moving account of himself: his family life, his literary life, and his emotional life. The final word from one of modern America's great writers, "The Journals of John Cheever" provides a powerful and beautiful capstone to a towering oeuvre.

A collection of the American author's short stories. They are stories of love and squalor, set in a world in which momentary glimpses of brightness - sea, clouds, light, the East River, a wife in a torn slip at the dressing table - contend with time, social change and the chaos of history.

In a nightmarish prison a convict named Farragut struggles to remain a man. Out of Farragut's suffering and astonishing salvation, Cheever crafted his most powerful work of fiction.