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The book frames short fiction through cultural and critical debates, using a thematic structure across twenty chapters rather than a strictly chronological account. It emphasizes how the short story functions as a fragment—challenging definitions, delighting in incompleteness, and resisting closure—while linking modern literature to oral tradition, popular sub-genres, and evolving notions of modernity and art.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":10,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-short-story-an-introduction/320124/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-short-story-an-introduction/320124.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Evangeline","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-23","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",11,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"What is the book’s main purpose in its new introduction?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"It introduces the development of the international short story from folktale origins to the present, and it connects short stories to cultural debates that also introduce critical and theoretical discussion.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"How is the book organized across its chapters?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"It is structured in twenty chapters that work thematically rather than chronologically, aiming to include key writers while acknowledging omissions and shifts in emphasis.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"How does the author characterize the short story’s form?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"The short story is treated as a type of fragment: prone to surprise readers, confound expectations, delight in incompleteness, and resist easy definition.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},320124,1791468561,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":8,"category_name":10,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":145,"read_time":146},13056703019662,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/be000253a8e92610077?_k=1778726343310543188","THE SHORT STORY  \nAN INTRODUCTION  \nPaul March-Russell  \nTHE SHORT STORY  \nThe Short Story  \nAn Introduction  \nPAUL MARCH-RUSSELL  \nEDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS  \n© Paul March-Russell, 2009  \nEdinburgh University Press Ltd  \n22 George Square, Edinburgh  \nTypeset in Ehrhardt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne  \nA CIP record for this book is available from the British Library  \nISBN 978 0 7486 2773 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 2774 5 (paperback)  \nThe right of Paul March-Russell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.  \nContents  \nAcknowledgements vi  \nIllustrations vii  \nPreface viii  \n1 Origins: From Folk-Tale to Art-Tale 1  \n2 Riddles, Hoaxes and Conundrums 12  \n3 Memory, Modernity and Orality 22  \n4 Poe, O. Henry and the Well-Made Story 32  \n5 Economies of Scale: The Short Story in England 43  \n6 Brought to Book: The Anthology and Its Uses 53  \n7 Between the Lines: Dissidence and the Short Story 66  \n8 Enclosed Readings: The Short Story and the Academy 77  \n9 Modernism and the Short Story 88  \n10 The Short Story Cycle 103  \n11 Character Parts: Identity in the Short Story 120  \n12 Localities: Centres and Margins 134  \n13 Tales of the City 150  \n14 Romance and the Fragment 165  \n15 Ghost Stories and Other Hauntings 179  \n16 Popular Short Fictions 191  \n17 The Experimental Text 210  \n18 Postmodernism and the Short Story 222  \n19 Minimalism/Dirty Realism/Hyperrealism 235  \n20 Voyages Out: The Postcolonial Short Story 246  \nBibliography 260  \nIndex 283  \nAcknowledgements  \nI would first of all like to thank the editorial team at Edinburgh University Press, in particular the commissioning editor Jackie Jones, for their help and enthusiasm. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers whose comments helped me to reshape the original proposal. Past and present colleagues at the University of Kent have aided me with advice, encouragement, insights and the loan of books, among them Maggie Awadalla, David Ayers, Jennifer Ballantine-Perera, David Blair, Keith Carabine, Agnès Cardinal, Stefania Ciocia, Patricia Debney, Brian Dillon, Alex Dolby, Rob Duggan, Lyn Innes, Julian Preece, Dave Reason, Caroline Rooney, Elizabeth Schächter, Martin Scofield, Florian Stadtler, David Stirrup, Scarlett Thomas and Sue Wicks. I remain grateful for the continued support of my PhD examiner Robert Hampson, while I am also indebted to timely conversations with Ailsa Cox and Toby Litt. Part of Chapter 10 was presented in a different form at the J. G. Ballard conference at the University of East Anglia in 2007: I am grateful to the organiser, Jeannette Baxter. I would also like to thank my many students in English, American and Comparative Literature for partaking (suffering?) seminars in tales, short stories and popular fictions. Lastly, I would like to thank the love and support of my far-flung family: John and Virginia in Oxford; Brandon, Lucy and their children in Somerset; Zahra in the Isle of Man; and Isabella and Kirit in Canterbury. This book is dedicated to the memories of Pamela Russell and Colin March.  \nCopyright permissions: I would like to thank the Estate of Donald Barthelme for allowing me to reprint an illustration from Donald Barthelme’s ‘The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace’ in Forty Stories (1989), and Iain Sinclair for permitting me to reprint a page from his story,‘The Griffin’s Egg’(1996) .  \nIllustrations  \n1 Iain Sinclair and Dave McKean,‘The Griffin’s Egg’, in It’s Dark in London, ed. Oscar Zarate (London:  \nSerpent’s Tail, 1996), p. 50. 163  \n2 Donald Barthelme,‘The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace’, in Forty Stories (New York: Penguin, 1989), p. 131. 175  \nPreface  \nThe aim of this new introduction is two-fold. First, it introduces the development of the international short story from its folktale origins to the present day, and second, it relates the short sto","cbCaiedcwTrXvEYy","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiedcwTrXvEYy","pdf",1053808,302,"English","# Acknowledgements\n# Illustrations\n# Preface\n# Origins: From Folk-Tale to Art-Tale\n# Riddles, Hoaxes and Conundrums\n# Memory, Modernity and Orality\n# Poe, O. Henry and the Well-Made Story\n# Economies of Scale: The Short Story in England\n# Brought to Book: The Anthology and Its Uses\n# Between the Lines: Dissidence and the Short Story\n# Enclosed Readings: The Short Story and the Academy\n# Modernism and the Short Story\n# The Short Story Cycle\n# Character Parts: Identity in the Short Story\n# Localities: Centres and Margins\n# Tales of the City\n# Romance and the Fragment\n# Ghost Stories and Other Hauntings\n# Popular Short Fictions\n# The Experimental Text\n# Postmodernism and the Short Story\n# Minimalism/Dirty Realism/Hyperrealism\n# Voyages Out: The Postcolonial Short Story\n# Bibliography\n# Index","[{\"question\":\"What is the book’s main purpose in its new introduction?\",\"answer\":\"It introduces the development of the international short story from folktale origins to the present, and it connects short stories to cultural debates that also introduce critical and theoretical discussion.\"},{\"question\":\"How is the book organized across its chapters?\",\"answer\":\"It is structured in twenty chapters that work thematically rather than chronologically, aiming to include key writers while acknowledging omissions and shifts in emphasis.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the author characterize the short story’s form?\",\"answer\":\"The short story is treated as a type of fragment: prone to surprise readers, confound expectations, delight in incompleteness, and resist easy definition.\"}]","THE SHORT STORY - An Introduction | PDF",1789949243,465]