A Companion to the British and Irish Short Story

Notes on Contributors ix

Preface xv

Part I: 1880–1945 1

Introduction 3

1 The British and Irish Short Story to 1945 5
Cheryl Alexander Malcolm and David Malcolm

Topics and Genres 17

2 The Story of Colonial Adventure 19
Mariadele Boccardi

3 Responses to War: 1914–1918 and 1939–1945 35
Richard Greaves

4 Irish Short Fiction: 1880–1945 51
Patrick Lonergan

5 The Detective and Crime Story: 1880–1945 65
Jopi Nyman

6 The British and Irish Ghost Story and Tale of the Supernatural: 1880–1945 81
Becky DiBiasio

7 Finding a Voice: Women Writing the Short Story (to 1945) 96
Sabine Coelsch-Foisner

8 Rudyard Kipling’s Art of the Short Story 114
David Malcolm

Reading Individual Authors and Texts 129

9 Robert Louis Stevenson: “The Bottle Imp,” “The Beach of Falesá,” and “Markheim” 131
Michael Meyer

10 Thomas Hardy: Wessex Tales 140
David Grylls

11 Joseph Conrad: “The Secret Sharer” and “An Outpost of Progress” 149
Christopher Thomas Cairney

12 The Short Stories of Hector Hugh Munro (“Saki”) 157
Sandie Byrne

13 Paralysis Re-considered: James Joyce’s Dubliners 165
Richard Greaves

14 H.G. Wells’s Short Stories: “The Country of the Blind” and “The Door in the Wall” 174
Sabine Coelsch-Foisner

15 D.H. Lawrence’s Short Stories: “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” 183
Kathryn Miles

16 Virginia Woolf: “Kew Gardens” and “The Legacy” 193
Stef Craps

17 Katherine Mansfi eld: “The Garden Party” and “Marriage à la Mode” 202
Jennifer E. Dunn

18 Frank O’Connor: “Guests of the Nation” and “My Oedipus Complex” 211
Greg Winston

19 The Short Stories of Liam O’Flaherty 221
Shawn O’Hare

20 W. Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden Stories 227
David Malcolm

21 Elizabeth Bowen: “The Demon Lover” and “Mysterious Kôr” 236
Sarah Dillon

Part II: 1945–the Present 245

Introduction 247

22 The British and Irish Short Story: 1945–Present 249
Cheryl Alexander Malcolm and David Malcolm

Topics and Genres 261

23 New Identities: The Irish Short Story since 1945 263
Greg Winston

24 Redefining Englishness: British Short Fiction from 1945 to the Present 279
James M. Lang

25 Scottish Short Stories (post 1945) 294
Gavin Miller

26 Hybrid Voices and Visions: The Short Stories of E.A. Markham, Ben Okri, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Patricia Duncker, and Jackie Kay 308
Michael Parker

27 The Anglo-Jewish Short Story since the Holocaust 330
Cheryl Alexander Malcolm

28 Feminist Voices: Women’s Short Fiction after 1945 342
Michael Meyer

29 British Gay and Lesbian Short Stories 356
Brett Josef Grubisic

30 Science Fiction and Fantasy after 1945: Beyond Pulp Fiction 372
Mitchell R. Lewis

31 Experimental Short Fiction in Britain since 1945 384
Günther Jarfe

Reading Individual Authors and Texts 399

32 The Short Stories of Julian Maclaren-Ross 401
David Malcolm

33 Alan Sillitoe: “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” 409
Michael Parker

34 The Short Stories of Elizabeth Taylor 416
Robert Ellis Hosmer, Jr

35 The Short Fiction of V.S. Pritchett 423
Andrzej Ga˛ siorek

36 Edna O’Brien: “A Rose in the Heart of New York” 431
Sinéad Mooney

37 Doris Lessing: African Stories 440
Don Adams

38 The Desire for Clarity: Seán O’Faoláin’s “Lovers of the Lake” 448
Paul Delaney

39 The Short Stories of Muriel Spark 456
Robert Ellis Hosmer, Jr

40 Jean Rhys: “Let Them Call It Jazz” 464
Cheryl Alexander Malcolm

41 George Mackay Brown: “Witch,” “Master Halcrow, Priest,” “A Time to Keep,” and “The Tarn and the Rosary” 472
Gavin Miller

42 William Trevor: Uncertain Grounds for Assured Art 480
John Kenny

43 John McGahern: Nightlines 488
Stanley van der Ziel

44 The Clinking of an Identity Disk: Bernard MacLaverty’s “Walking the Dog” 498
Jerzy Jarniewicz

45 Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber: A World Transformed by Imagination and Desire – Adventures in Anarcho-Surrealism 507
Madelena Gonzalez

46 J.G. Ballard: Psychopathology, Apocalypse, and the Media Landscape 516
Mitchell R. Lewis

47 The Short Stories of Benjamin Okri 524
Wolfgang Görtschacher

48 James Kelman: Greyhound for Breakfast 532
Peter Clandfield

49 Hanif Kureishi: Love in a Blue Time 541
Patrick Lonergan

Index 550