The Oxford Book of Modern Women's Stories

British editor Craig aims here to ``indicate in a single volume the extent of women's contributions to the short story form.'' While no such summing up seems possible, this excellent book goes a long way toward reaching her goal. Beginning with Willa Cather's classic ``Paul's Case'' (1905) and ranging through the 1990s, these 40 selections confirm the literary brilliance of many of their creators and, at the least, the deftness of craft of others. Stars of the collection are Alice Munro's highly charged re-creation of a woman's life in ``Meneseteung''; Nadine Gordimer's 1956 story, the daringly candid, still timely ``Which New Era Would That Be?''; ``First Love'' a darkly luminous tale from Eudora Welty; the deliciously witty, superbly crafted ``The Rehabilitation of Ginevra Leake,'' by Hortense Calisher; the earthy, vigorous ``An Interest in Life,'' by Grace Paley. More memoir than fiction, Mary McCarthy's ``Yonder Peasant, Who Is He?'' makes the heart quake; Flannery O'Connor's familiar ``Good Country People'' packs a wallop no matter how many times one has read it; Cynthia Ozick's ``The Butterfly and the Traffic Light'' gleams with stunning aper us. Margaret Atwood addresses the irony of youthful dreams in ``Hair Jewellery,'' and Joyce Carol Oates's trademark erotic violence distinguishes ``Scene of Passion and Despair.'' A clutch of typically British stories by Jane Gardam, Stevie Smith, Angela Carter and F.M. Mayor may be a bit less appealing to American readers, but Katherine Mansfield's ``Je ne parle pas francais'' remains riveting and Fay Weldon's sardonic ``In the Great War'' is the last word on women's lib. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Bharati Mukherjee and Anjana Appachana limn pictures of their compatriots at home and as emigrants to other shores; Edna O'Brien evokes rural Ireland; and a chapter from Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club offers a Chinese-American woman's view of the world, rounding out a splendid collection. (Dec.)