Since nearly my entire creative writing practice has taken place in my forties and fifties—with all printed published works being in the latter decade—I recently became interested in my favorite authors' various ages. That is, how old were they when they wrote (what I considered to be) their best works?
Here are my 24 favorite all-time short stories, listed chronologically, and further subdivided by how old the authors were when they produced them:
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19th-Century Authors
“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe (1843) [ As a Young Man ]
“The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” by Edgar Allen Poe (1856) [ In His Forties ] **
“The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forester (1909) [ As a Young Man ]
“Azathoth” by H.P. Lovecraft (1922) [ As a Young Man ]
“The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges (1941) [ In His Forties ]
Greatest Generation Authors While Young
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson (1948)
“The Man Who Lost the Sea” by Theodore Sturgeon (1959)
“Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes (1959)
“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
Silent Generation Authors While Young
““Repent, Harlequin!” Said The Ticktockman” by Harlan Ellison (1965)
“I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison (1967) **
Silent Generation in Their Forties
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin (1973)
“When I was Ming the Merciless” by Gene Wolfe (1975)
“Jeffty is Five” by Harlan Ellison (1977) ***
Boomer Authors While Young
“Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory” by Orson Scott Card (1979)
“Survivor Type” by Stephen King (1985)
“Nicholas Was” by Neil Gaiman (1989)
50-something Silent Generation Authors
“My Book” by Gene Wolfe (1989) **
Boomer Authors in their Forties
“The Conqueror Worm” by Stephen R. Donaldson (1993)
“Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler (1995)
Gen-X Authors
“The Egg” by Andy Weir (2009) [ In His Forties ]
“What’s Expected of Us” by Ted Chiang (2010) [ As a Young Man ]
“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (2011) [ As a Young Man ]
50-something Boomer Authors
“The October Tale” by Neil Gaiman (2013) **
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NOTE: the number of asterisks denotes when the same author has written more than one featured on this list, two asterisks for their second, three for their third, etc.