Edited by Charles E. May
Although the short story has often been called America’s unique contribution to the world’s literature, relatively few critics have taken the form seriously. May’s collection of essays by popular commentators, academic critics, and short story writers attempts to assess the reasons for this neglect and provides significant theoretical directions for a reevaluation of the form.
The essays range from discussions by Poe to comments by John Cheever. Frank O’Connor describes the short story as depicting “an intense awareness of human loneliness,” and Nadine Gordimer suggests that the story is more suitable than the novel in rendering the fragmentary modern experience. Eudora Welty sees the story as something “wrapped in an atmosphere” of its own; Randall Jarrell speaks of the mythic basis of the genre. Elizabeth Bowen and Alberto Moravia discuss thematic and structural distinctions between the novel and the story.
The collection also includes discussions of various types of stories, as satiric and lyric, critical surveys of the development of the modern short story, and the status of the form at the present time. An excellent annotated bibliography is also included, which describes 135 books and articles on the short story, evaluating their contribution to a unified theory of the form.
Charles E. May is professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of the Short Fiction and The Short Story: A Study of the Genre and editor of Short Story Theories, Fiction’s Many Words, and Twentieth Century European Short Story. He has published over a hundred and fifty articles, mostly on the short story, in a variety of journals, books, and reference works and has developed a software program, HyperStory, available from D. C. Heath Publishers, for short story instruction. More info →
Retail price:
$26.95 ·
Save 20% ($21.56)
US and Canada only
Share 
Permission to reprint
Permission
to photocopy or include in a course pack
via Copyright Clearance
Center
Click or tap on a subject heading to sign up to be notified when new related books come out.
Paperback
978-0-8214-0221-4
Retail price: $26.95,
S.
Release date: January 1977
265 pages
Rights: World
The Wife of Martin Guerre
By Janet Lewis
Set in 16th century France, this compelling story of Bertrande de Rols is the first of the Cases of Circumstantial Evidence.
Literature · Historical Fiction · American Literature · France · Women Authors · Literary Fiction
The Other John Updike
Poems, Short Stories, Prose, Play
By Donald J. Greiner
John Updike has won a National Book Award and has earned both critical and popular acclaim. At the moment, his reputation rests largely on his novels, especially Rabbit, Run; The Centaur; Of the Farm; and The Coup. Of his many books, more than half are volumes of poems, stories, essays and reviews, and one play, yet the numerous critical books on Updike concentrate primarily on his long fiction with the result that over one half of his canon is often ignored.
The New Short Story Theories
Edited by Charles E. May
Aimed at writers, students, teachers, and critics interested in the short story as a genre, this rich collection of essays examines theoretical issues raised about this demanding literary form.
All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing
An Explanation of Meter and Versification
By Timothy Steele
Perfect for the general reader of poetry, students and teachers of literature, and aspiring poets, All the Fun’s in How You Say a Thing is a lively and comprehensive study of versification by one of our best contemporary practitioners of traditional poetic forms.
Sign up to be notified when new Literature titles come out.
We will only use your email address to notify you of new titles in the subject area(s) you follow. We will never share your information with third parties.
