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Modern-day, award-winning writer Neil Gaiman said of the short story, “A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick – a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.” American writer Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 62) said, “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”
Both writers were alluding to the high degree of skill needed to write stories in the short form – they are not simply “short novels” but works of art that require the same precise skills as the miniaturist sculptor. In the midst of our modern day, time-pressed lives, the short story is the perfect way to dip in and out of great literature.
One of the founding fathers of science fiction, Herbert George Wells (1866 – 1946) began his writing career with the seminal The Time Machine. Developed by degrees from a series of articles, it first appeared in two serial versions before final publication in 1895. In this particular 1958 publication from Penguin there are 20 other science fictions including the reconstruction of prehistoric life in 'The Grisly Ones' to the cosmic parable of 'The Country of the Blind'.
For anyone who loves science fiction or the short story, this would be an out-of-this-world treasure in your vintage book collection.
As an unsuccessful doctor in Southsea, the lack of patients allowed Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) the time to write short fiction including the series of short stories he contributed to The Strand Magazine, featuring the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.
This 1953 anthology of all the Holmes short stories – five volumes in one (not including the four Holmes novels) - starts with A Scandal in Bohemia (1892) and ends with Shoscombe Old Place (1927). This brightly coloured publication would be an “elementary” addition to any home library collection of classic short stories..
This 1977 anthology of adult short stories from Faber, was curated with the young adult reader in mind, including notes on each author and their best known works, and represents a ‘who’s who’ of British and American masters of the short story craft including Dylan Thomas, Katherine Mansfield, James Thurber and William Faulkner and many others included elsewhere in this selection of short story publications. Interesting Faber fact: Poet T. S. Eliot, one of the original editors at Faber, took the decision to reject two books, Down and Out in London and Paris and Animal Farm, by the then unheard-of author, George Orwell.
Edward Morgan Forster (1879 – 1970) is perhaps best known for two major long works of fiction A Room with a View (1908) and Howards End(1910), although his two collections of short stories The Celestial Omnibus (1911) and The Eternal Moment(1928) demonstrated a sure touch with the short form, approaching profound themes with a light and accessible touch, approaching comedy. One of the stories 'The Machine Stops' was described by the author as "a reaction to one of the earlier heavens by H. G. Wells” and another, an ingenious satire on “progress”.
(William) Somerset Maughan (1874 – 1965) described himself as one of English literature’s leading ‘second-raters’ however critics have praised his narrative skill and merciless, anti-romantic powers of observation. His short stories, including some that have been considered among the best in the language, appeared in collections beginning with 'Orientations' (1899) and ending with 'Creatures of Circumstance' (1947). Maughan was assertive in the selection and order of his short stories in this attractively presented 1973 collection, commenting that the reader should not be expected to “leap suddenly from China to Peru and back again”.
The island of Ireland has consistently punched well above its weight as a deep well of short story writing talent, which continues to this day. This 1974 anthology from Oxford University Press boasts contributions from many of Ireland’s best including Elizabeth Bowen, James Joyce and Sean O’Faolain.
A literary critic writing recently in The Guardian said, “Irish writing has never shied away from experimentalism, and nor have readers been frightened off by it. There is, in general, a far more relaxed approach to genre, a less divisive bracketing of “posh” and commercial writers, and less policing of the boundaries between fiction, nonfiction and other art forms.” The book-lovers at Country House Library couldn’t agree more.
In 1935 (Francis) Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) began to write about his confessional essays about his broken health (mainly through alcoholism) and exhaustion as a writer. The essays 'The Crack-up' together with 'Pasting it together' and 'Handle with Care' were published in the Esquire Magazine in 1936. Despite his drinking and decadent, boisterous ‘Jazz-age’ life with his wife Zelda, and fast living friends including the writer Ernest Hemingway, Fitzgerald produced some of the finest inter-war American literature including such greats as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night, together with an impressive catalogue of short stories.
Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway (1898 – 1961) won a bet by writing the six-word story “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” What is known for certain is that Hemingway can be considered as one the founding fathers of the modern short story – the inventor of extreme brevity and the short story technique of the ‘hidden part of the iceberg’ i.e leaving the back-story unseen and for the reader to surmise.
This 1952 publication from Jonathan Cape includes many of ‘Papa’s’ finest short stories including his earliest published work 'Up in Michigan' (1923), his later writings including 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber' (1936), and the famous 'Hills Like White Elephants' (1927) taken from the short story collection Men Without Women.
Difficult to condense the achievements of children’s author Enid Mary Blyton (1897 – 1968) into a few hundred words. Worldwide sales since the 1930’s, more than 600 million books sold, translated into 90 languages, sometimes producing over 50 books a year, and voted Britain’s most loved author in the 2008 Costa Book Awards are some. However, Blyton also had her detractors who branded her work “elitist, sexist, racist and xenophobic” with the BBC banning her work from 1930’s to 1950’s due to their “low literary merit”.
Best remembered today for her series of Noddy, The Famous Five, The Secret Seven and Mallory Towers, Blyton also wrote short stories including this 1966 volume of bedtime stories – perfect, easy-listening for a tired child, or guiltless nostalgia for the collector of vintage books.
Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924) was a German speaking, Jewish novelist, born in Prague. He wrote three novels, The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926) and the unfinished Amerika (1927) and a large number of short stories of which 'The Metamorphosis' (1915) is undoubtedly the best known.
Characteristic of Kafka’s work is the enigmatic reality in which the individual is often seen as lonely, perplexed, threatened, and wracked with guilt. The literary term ‘Kafkaesque’ is frequently used to describe work employing similar narrative techniques. This Penguin publication from 1968 is a ‘must-have’ for any lover of the literary short story – another 20th century pioneer of the form.
The short story was born in pre-history, before the written word and long-before the novel. Fictional tales of warrior ancestors and the celestial Gods were handed down through the generations by word of mouth. Fast-forward millenia, and many of the literary greats have recognised the short story as the ultimate expression of their craft. Country House Library has an extensive collection of vintage short story volumes, with something to suit all ages, literary tastes and pockets.
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