This concise, authoritative classic remains essential and compelling for today's readers, providing a complete overview of the essential elements of fiction, along with a diverse selection of important and engaging stories to illustrate them. The section on three featured writers, James Joyce, Flannery O'Connor, and Joyce Carol Oates, includes three stories by each author (at least one of them new for Joyce and O'Connor with this edition), as well as essays, some new, by noted critics on their works. Each student text is packaged with a free Cengage Essential Reference Card to the MLA HANDBOOK, Eighth Edition.