The Cambridge Companion to the English Short Story Cambridge Companions to Literature Series

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.

Ann-Marie Einhaus is Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. She is the author of The Short Story and the First World War (Cambridge, 2013) and coeditor, with Barbara Korte, of The Penguin Book of First World War Stories.