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    Some Anomalies of the Short Story (from Literature and Life)
    Some Anomalies of the Short Story (from Literature and Life)
    Some Anomalies of the Short Story (from Literature and Life)
    Ebook34 pages27 minutes

    Some Anomalies of the Short Story (from Literature and Life)

    By William Dean Howells

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    Some Anomalies of the Short Story (from Literature and Life)
    Author

    William Dean Howells

    William Dean Howells was a realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of The Atlantic Monthly, as well as for his own prolific writings.

    Read more from William Dean Howells

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      Book preview

      Some Anomalies of the Short Story (from Literature and Life) - William Dean Howells

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Anomalies of the Short Story by William Dean Howells

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: Some Anomalies of the Short Story From Literature and Life

      Author: William Dean Howells

      Release Date: October 22, 2004 [EBook #3384]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME ANOMALIES OF THE SHORT STORY ***

      Produced by David Widger

      LITERATURE AND LIFE—Some Anomalies of the Short Story

      by William Dean Howells

      SOME ANOMALIES OF THE SHORT STORY

      The interesting experiment of one of our great publishing houses in putting out serially several volumes of short stories, with the hope that a courageous persistence may overcome the popular indifference to such collections when severally administered, suggests some questions as to this eldest form of fiction which I should like to ask the reader's patience with. I do not know that I shall be able to answer them, or that I shall try to do so; the vitality of a question that is answered seems to exhale in the event; it palpitates no longer; curiosity flutters away from the faded flower, which is fit then only to be folded away in the 'hortus siccus' of accomplished facts. In view of this I may wish merely to state the problems and leave them for the reader's solution, or, more amusingly, for his mystification.

      I.

      One of the most amusing questions concerning the short story is why a form which is singly so attractive that every one likes to read a short story when he finds it alone is collectively so repellent as it is said to be. Before now I have imagined the case to be somewhat the same as that of a number of pleasant people who are most acceptable as separate householders, but who lose caste and cease to be desirable acquaintances when gathered into a boarding-house.

      Yet the case is not the same quite, for we see that the short story where it is ranged with others of its species within the covers of a

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