The Cambridge Introduction to the Short Story in English (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)
Cambridge University Press, 11/1/2007
EAN 9780521681124, ISBN10: 052168112X
Paperback, 212 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm
Language: English
The short story has become an increasingly important genre since the mid-nineteenth century. Complementing The Cambridge Introduction to the American Short Story, this book examines the development of the short story in Britain and other English-language literatures. It considers issues of form and style alongside - and often as part of - a broader discussion of publishing history and the cultural contexts in which the short story has flourished and continues to flourish. In its structure the book provides a chronological survey of the form, usefully grouping writers to show the development of the genre over time. Starting with Dickens and Kipling, the chapters cover key authors from the past two centuries and up to the present day. The focus on form, literary history, and cultural context, together with the highlighting of the greatest short stories and their authors, make this a stimulating and informative overview for all students of English literature.
Introduction
Part I. The Nineteenth Century
Introduction
publishers, plots and prestige
1. Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy
2. Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad
3. The Yellow Book circle and the 1890s avant-garde
Part II. The Modernist Short Story
Introduction
'Complete with missing parts'
4. James Joyce
5. Virginia Woolf
6. Katherine Mansfield
7. Samuel Beckett
Part III. Post-Modernist Stories
Introduction
theories of form
8. Frank O'Connor and Sean O'Faolain
9. Elizabeth Bowen and V. S. Pritchett
10. Angela Carter and Ian McEwan
Part IV. Post-colonial and Other Stories
Introduction
a 'minor' literature?
11. Frank Sargeson and Marjorie Barnard
12. James Kelman and Chinua Achebe
13. Alice Munro
Guide to further reading
Index.