# The Early Stories: 1953–1975

The Early Stories: 1953–1975, published in 2003 by Knopf, is a John Updike book collecting much of his short stories written from the beginning of his writing career, when he was just 21, until 1975. Only four stories published in this entire time period have been omitted from this collection by John Updike himself: "Intercession" (collected in The Same Door), and "The Pro", "One of My Generation", and "God Speaks" (collected in Museums and Women and Other Stories). The majority of the stories were originally published in The New Yorker magazine. In 2004, the book received the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

## Stories collected

The stories are not arranged chronologically but rather by theme into eight sections: "Olinger Stories" (from "You'll Never Know, Dear, How Much I Love You" to "In Football Season", same as the 1964 collection Olinger Stories), "Out in the World" (from "The Lucid Eye in Silver Town" to "At a Bar in Charlotte Amalie"), "Married Life" (from "Toward Evening" to "Nakedness"), "Family Life" (from "The Family Meadow" to "Daughter, Last Glimpses of"), "The Two Iseults" (from "Solitaire" to " I Will Not Let Thee Go, Except Thou Bless Me"), "Tarbox Tales" (from "The Indian" to "Eclipse"), "Far Out" (from "Archangel" to "The Sea's Green Sameness"), and "The Single Life" (from "The Bulgarian Poetess" to "Love Song, for a Moog Synthesizer").
| Title | Originally published | Originally collected |
| You'll Never Know, Dear, How Much I Love You | June 18, 1960 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| The Alligators | March 22, 1958 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| Pigeon Feathers | August 19, 1961 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Friends from Philadelphia | October 30, 1954 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| A Sense of Shelter | January 16, 1960 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Flight | August 22, 1959 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| The Happiest I've Been | January 3, 1959 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| The Persistence of Desire | July 11, 1959 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| The Blessed Man of Boston, My Grandmother's Thimble, and Fanning Island | | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, a Dying Cat, a Traded Car | December 16, 1961 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| In Football Season | November 10, 1962 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| The Lucid Eye in Silver Town | | |
| The Kid's Whistling | December 3, 1955 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| Ace in the Hole | April 9, 1955 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| Tomorrow and Tomorrow and So Forth | April 30, 1955 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| The Christian Roommates | April 4, 1964 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Dentistry and Doubt | October 29, 1955 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| A Madman | December 22, 1962 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Still Life | January 24, 1959 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Home | July 9, 1960 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Who Made Yellow Roses Yellow? | April 7, 1956 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| His Finest Hour | June 23, 1956 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| A Trillion Feet of Gas | December 8, 1956 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| Dear Alexandros | October 31, 1959 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| The Doctor's Wife | February 11, 1961 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| At a Bar in Charlotte Amalie | January 11, 1964 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Toward Evening | February 11, 1956 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| Snowing in Greenwich Village | January 21, 1956 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| Sunday Teasing | October 13, 1956 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| Incest | June 29, 1957 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| A Gift from the City | April 12, 1958 (The New Yorker) | The Same Door (1959) |
| Walter Briggs | | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| The Crow in the Woods | | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Should Wizard Hit Mommy? | June 13, 1959 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Wife-Wooing | March 12, 1960 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Unstuck | February 3, 1962 (The New Yorker) | Trust Me (1984) |
| Giving Blood | April 6, 1963 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Twin Beds in Rome | February 8, 1964 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Marching through Boston | January 22, 1966 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Nakedness | | |
| The Family Meadow | July 24, 1965 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| The Day of the Dying Rabbit | August 30, 1969 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| How to Love America and Leave It at the Same Time | August 19, 1972 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| The Music School | December 12, 1964 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Man and Daughter in the Cold | March 9, 1968 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Rescue | January 2, 1965 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Plumbing | February 20, 1971 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Orphaned Swimming Pool | June 27, 1970 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| When Everyone Was Pregnant | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Eros Rampant | June 1968 (Harper's) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Sublimating | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Nevada | January 1974 (Playboy) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| The Gun Shop | November 25, 1972 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Son | April 21, 1973 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Daughter, Last Glimpses of | November 5, 1973 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Solitaire | January 22, 1972 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Leaves | November 14, 1964 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| The Stare | April 3, 1965 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Museums and Women | November 18, 1967 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Avec la Bébé-Sitter | January 1, 1966 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Four Sides of One Story | October 9, 1965 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| The Morning | July 18, 1964 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| My Lover Has Dirty Fingernails | July 17, 1965 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| Harv is Plowing Now | April 23, 1966 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| I Will Not Let Thee Go, Except Thou Bless Me | October 11, 1969 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Indian | August 17, 1963 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| The Hillies | December 20, 1969 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Tarbox Police | | |
| The Corner | May 24, 1969 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| A & P | July 22, 1961 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| Lifeguard | June 16, 1961 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| The Deacon | February 21, 1970 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Carol Sing | December 19, 1970 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Taste of Metal | March 11, 1967 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Your Lover Just Called | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Commercial | June 10, 1972 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Minutes of the Last Meeting | July–August 1972 (Audience) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Believers | July 1972 (Harper's Monthly) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Eclipse | | |
| Archangel | | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| The Dark | October 31, 1964 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| The Astronomer | April 1, 1961 (The New Yorker) | Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) |
| The Witnesses | August 13, 1966 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| A Constellation of Events | | Trust Me (1984) |
| Ethiopia | January 14, 1974 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Transaction | March 1974 (Oui) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Augustine's Concubine | April 1975 (The Atlantic) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| During the Jurassic | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Under the Microscope | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Baluchitherium | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Invention of the Horse Collar | Spring-Summer 1971 (The Transatlantic Review) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Jesus on Honshu | December 25, 1971 (The New Yorker) | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Slump | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Sea's Green Sameness | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| The Bulgarian Poetess | March 13, 1965 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| The Hermit | February 20, 1965 (The New Yorker) | The Music School (1966) |
| I Am Dying, Egypt, Dying | | Museums and Women and Other Stories (1972) |
| Separating | June 23, 1975 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Gesturing | | |
| Killing | | Trust Me (1984) |
| Problems | November 3, 1975 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| The Man Who Loved Extinct Mammals | July 21, 1975 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |
| Love Song, for a Moog Synthesizer | June 14, 1976 (The New Yorker) | Problems and Other Stories (1979) |