What's wrong with the anthology 50 Great Short Stories

I've been poking around in an anthology, 50 Great Short Stories, originally published in 1952 and kept in print through various editions by Bantam Classics - thanks, guys - so we know from the start that this will be a dated anthology, with nothing from the past 3/4 of a century!, but still there are many great stories included from a range of cultures though w/ heavy leaning toward British and American. The 4 stories I've read over the past 2 days are all good, of course; I posted on a Hemingway story yesterday, and will note in passing a good story by Dorothy Parker, Standard of Living, which has a fantastic opening paragraph about the overly rich food two women are consuming and then goes on to describe the two partners in a secretarial pool, each living at home with parents/family in NY and dreaming - through an elaborate thought-game they concoct - about what they would acquire if they were wealthy - a funny story despite its obvious condescension, plus a story, Saint, by the V.S. Pritchett about his loss of faith when he spends some time w/ the humbug minister who'd enraptured his parents - worth reading for the funny scene alone in which they engage in a punting accident (this may take place in Cambridge, England?) that humiliates the minister - a good story except that the minister is such an easy target and obvious blowhard that there's really no dramatic tension. Parker and Ptritchett are not read much today. But I have to register here a complaint about this anthology, edited - or I would say "selected" as there is no editing - by a UChicago English prof, Milton Crane, and this collection shows all that was wrong and idiotic about the ultra-conservative Chicago lit dept in those days, w. their New Criticism belief that the text stood alone outside of authorial or cultural context. Following this absurd dicta, Crane gives no notes on authors, no sense of original publication date (you could look at the copyright permissions for some info), and no clue as to his principal of organization, if any. Great, you've given us 50 well-selected "texts" but have done nothing to help a reader w/ context, and what did they pay you for that?