Read The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis Online
Authors: Lydia Davis
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
Also by Lydia Davis
NOVEL
The End of the Story
STORIES
Break It Down
Almost No Memory
Samuel Johnson Is Indignant
Varieties of Disturbance
SELECTED TRANSLATIONS
Swann’s Way
by Marcel Proust
Death Sentence
by Maurice Blanchot
The Madness of the Day
by Maurice Blanchot
The Spirit of Mediterranean Places
by Michel Butor
Rules of the Game, I: Scratches
by Michel Leiris
Rules of the Game, II: Scraps
by Michel Leiris
Hélène
by Pierre Jean Jouve
The Collected Stories of
HAMISH HAMILTON
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
HAMISH HAMILTON
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL
, England
First published in the USA by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2009
First published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton 2010
Copyright © Lydia Davis, 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint the following material:
‘Worstward Ho’, copyright © 1983 by Samuel Beckett. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. In ‘The Walk’, quotations from
Swann’s Way
by Marcel Proust, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and revised by Terence Kilmartin, copyright © 1981 by Marcel Proust, used by permission of Random House, Inc.; quotations from
Swann’s Way
by Marcel Proust, translated by Lydia Davis, copyright © 2002 by Lydia Davis, used by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. and Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. ‘Extracts from a Life’ is adapted from
Nurtured by Love
by Sinichi Suzuki, and is used by permission of Exposition Press. The tale in ‘Once a Very Stupid Man’ is adapted from the traditional Hasidic story recounted in Martin Buber’s
The Way of Man
, and is used by permisson of Citadel Press. ‘Lord Royston’s Tour’ was adapted from
The Remains of Viscount Royston: A Memoir of His Life
by the Rev. Henry Pepys, London, 1838.
Samuel Johnson is Indignant
was first published by McSweeney’s Books.
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-141-96289-4
Mr. Burdoff’s Visit to Germany
How W. H. Auden Spends the Night in a Friend’s House:
Sketches for a Life of Wassilly
The Cats in the Prison Recreation Hall
The Race of the Patient Motorcyclists
SAMUEL JOHNSON IS INDIGNANT (2001)
Certain Knowledge from Herodotus
First Grade: Handwriting Practice
Information from the North Concerning the Ice:
They Take Turns Using a Word They Like
Marie Curie, So Honorable Woman
My Neighbors in a Foreign Place
Almost Over: Separate Bedrooms
VARIETIES OF DISTURBANCE (2007)
Idea for a Short Documentary Film
We Miss You: A Study of Get-Well Letters from a Class of Fourth-Graders
Southward Bound, Reads
Worstward Ho
Helen and Vi: A Study in Health and Vitality
Mother’s Reaction to My Travel Plans
