A Companion to the American Short StoryISBN: 978-1-4051-1543-8
Hardcover
534 pages
March 2010, Wiley-Blackwell
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A Companion to the American Short Story traces the
development of this versatile literary genre over the past two
centuries. Written by leading critics in the field, and edited by
two major scholars, it explores a wide range of writers, from Edgar
Allen Poe and Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin, and Charles Chesnutt at
the end of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth the
focus is on such important Modern writers as Ernest Hemingway,
William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Richard Wright before
moving into the contemporary period with essays on Raymond Carver,
Saul Bellow, and Denise Chávez. Contributions with a
broader focus address groups of multiethnic, Asian, and Jewish
writers. All the essays set the short story in context, focusing on
the interaction of cultural forces and aesthetic principles.
The Companion takes account of cutting edge approaches to literary studies and contributes to the ongoing redefinition of the American canon, embracing genres such as ghost and detective fiction, cycles of interrelated short fiction, and comic, social and political stories. The volume also reflects the diverse communities that have adopted this literary form and made it their own, featuring entries on a variety of feminist and multicultural traditions. This volume presents an important new consideration of the role of the short story in the literary history of American literature.