The short story : a critical introduction / Valerie Shaw.

"A Pearson Education print on demand edition" on cover.

First published : 1983.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

'Only short stories' : estimates and explanations -- 'A wide margin for the wonderful' : Robert Louis Stevenson -- 'Artful' narration : from the sensation story to the scenic method -- 'Artless' narration -- 'Glanced at through a window' : characterization -- Places and communities -- Subject-matter --
'The splintering frame.'

After years of critical neglect the short story is at last coming into its own as an important and distinctive literary form. In this stimulating introduction, Valerie Shaw asserts the claims of the short story as an art form in its own right. She addresses herself throughout to two key question: "What are the special satisfactions afforded by reading short stories?" and "How are these satisfactions derived from each story's literary techniques and narrative strategies?" To answer them she draws on stories from different periods and countries -- by authors who were also great novelists, like Henry James, Flaubert, Kafka, and D. H. Lawrence; by authors who specifically dedicated themselves to the art of the short story, like Kipling, Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield; by contemporary practitioners like Angela Carter and Jorge Luis Borges; and by unfairly neglected writers like Sarah Orne Jewett and Joel Chandler Harris. -- From publisher's description.