Salem Press

Short Story Writers, revised edition
Publisher's Note

Short Story Writers, Revised Edition, is the first revision of this Magill's Choice set published in 1997. To that earlier edition's collection of 102 articles, this edition adds 44 more articles on important authors of short fiction. This three-volume set thus has 146 articles on the most frequently taught, most frequently read, most acclaimed, and most often researched short-fiction writers studied in American schools and colleges. All the essays in these volumes have been culled from the 480 author essays in Salem Press's Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition (2001) and have been updated. They collectively provide an essential look at the best in short-fiction writing in an easy-to-use and student-friendly format.

Any list of contents in a work such as this is necessarily subjective, making the inclusion of one author over another open to debate. Nevertheless, the editors have done their best to meet the needs of core literature curricula in schools by including the authors who most commonly appear on basic reading lists. Thanks to the more than 40-percent expansion of coverage in Short Story Writers, Revised Edition, users are more likely than ever to find articles on the authors whom they are studying.

The selection of authors in these volumes focuses mainly on modern short-story writers, with a brief nod to the classic fourteenth century writings of Giovanni Boccaccio (The Decameron) and Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales). The set also takes into account the influence of the contes or Märchen, represented here by the Grimm Brothers and Grimm's Fair Tales. By the mid-nineteenth century, two distinct types of short fiction existed: the tale and the essay-sketch. The modern short story brings together the best of these two traditions. Although questions of how, when, and where short fiction developed have generated lively debate, most scholars of the genre agree that the modern short story began in the United States and specifically in the writings of Washington Irving. Indeed, it is often conceded that Irving's "Rip Van Winkle" (1809) was the first great modern short story.

Irving is often called the inventor of the short story; however, modern short stories appeared almost simultaneously in Russia, France, Germany, and the United States. Consequently, credit for creating the form has also been attributed to Russia's Nikolai Gogol, France's Prosper Mérimée, and America's Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as Irving. Among these writers, Poe stands out; he not only wrote short stories but also wrote about the short story form in theory. He addressed it as a distinct genre, advancing the thesis that a story should have a unified effect and be compact--principles that still guide short-story criticism.

Many outstanding writers of the genre have followed, and the other authors covered in this set reflect the range and diversity of nineteenth and twentieth century short-story writing. More than half the authors (87) covered are from the United States, reflecting the strength of the genre in its birthplace. These American writers include 10 African Americans, 4 Native Americans, and 3 Latinos. The second largest national grouping is England (19), added to which are some of the great authors of Ireland (7) and Scotland (3). Readers will also find some of the cornerstone short fiction writers of Canada, the Continent, Russia, Asia, Africa, and South America. Women authors have excelled in the genre, and of the 49 surveyed in these volumes, 21 are new to this edition.

Organization
The essays are arranged alphabetically, by authors' surnames, in the three volumes, and their concise and accessible formats follow an easy-to-use template. Each essay begins with the author's name, birth date and place, death date and place when appropriate, and a chronological list of the subject's major publications of short fiction. The text of the essay is divided into four subsections:

The back matter of each essay includes "Other major works," which lists the author's publications in genres other than the short story, and a solid annotated bibliography. All the bibliographies in these essays have been substantially updated.

Volume 3 concludes with a glossary of more than 150 terms and techniques commonly used in the study of short fiction and a comprehensive index. A list of the many scholars who contributed their time and knowledge to writing the articles appears on the following page.