The Cambridge Companion to the English Short Story

This Companion provides an accessible overview of the contexts, periods, and subgenres of English-language short fiction outside of North America.

Ann-Marie Einhaus (Edited by)

9781107446014, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 June 2016

250 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.4 kg

This Companion provides an accessible overview of short fiction by writers from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and other international sites. A collection of international experts examine the development of the short story in a variety of contexts from the early nineteenth century to the present. They consider how dramatic changes in the publishing landscape during this period - such as the rise of the fiction magazine and the emergence of new opportunities in online and electronic publishing - influenced the form, covering subgenres from detective fiction to flash fiction. Drawing on a wealth of critical scholarship to place the short story in the English literary tradition, this volume will be an invaluable guide for students of the short story in English.

Introduction Ann-Marie Einhaus
Part I. Contexts: 1. Writing and publishing the short story Paul March-Russell
2. Social realism in the short story Anthony Patterson
3. The short story and the anxieties of Empire Barbara Korte
4. The short story, identity, space, and place David Malcolm
Part II. Periods: 5. Romantic short fiction David Stewart
6. Victorian short stories John Plotz
7. The short story in the early twentieth century Ann-Marie Einhaus
8. Mid-twentieth-century stories Victoria Stewart
9. The short story from postmodernism to the digital age Maebh Long
Part III. Genres: 10. Comic short fiction and its variety Kate Macdonald
11. The detective short story Martin Priestman
12. The gothic in short fiction Luke Thurston
13. The British science fiction story Andrew M. Butler
14. Microfiction Marc Botha.

Subject Areas: Literary companions, book reviews & guides [DSRC], Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: general [DSB]