American Short Story Handbook

James Nagel is the Eidson Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia and a Visiting Scholar at Dartmouth College, USA. He is President of the Society for the Study of the American Short Story and Former President of the International Ernest Hemingway Society.  Early in his career he founded the scholarly journal Studies in American Fiction and the widely influential series Critical Essays on American Literature, which published 156 volumes of scholarship.  Among his twenty-three books are Stephen Crane and Literary Impressionism (1980), Hemingway in Love and War (1989, which was made into a Hollywood film starring Sandra Bullock), The Contemporary American Short-Story Cycle (2001), Anthology of The American Short Story (2007), The Blackwell Companion to the American Short Story (Wiley Blackwell, 2010), and Race and Culture in Stories of New Orleans (2014). He has been a Fulbright Professor as well as a Rockefeller Fellow. He has published some eighty articles in the field and lectured on American literature in fifteen countries.

• Preface vii Part 1 Introduction 1Part 2 Historical Overview of the American Short Story 9The American Story to Washington Irving 12The Age of Romanticism 20Realism and Naturalism 26American Modernism 39The Contemporary American Short Story 46Part 3 Notable Authors of American Short Stories 55Washington Irving 57Edgar Allan Poe 62Nathaniel Hawthorne 67Herman Melville 71Mark Twain 76Bret Harte 82Henry James 86Kate Chopin 91Stephen Crane 96O. Henry 101Sarah Orne Jewett 105Charles W. Chesnutt 109Willa Cather 115F. Scott Fitzgerald 120Ernest Hemingway 126John Steinbeck 132William Faulkner 139Jamaica Kincaid 144Tim O’Brien 150Louise Erdrich 156Part 4 Great American Short Stories 163Benjamin Franklin, “The Speech of Polly Baker” 165Ruri Colla, “The Story of the Captain’s Wife and an Aged Woman” 168Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle” 172Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” 177Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado” 180Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” 184Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “The Two Offers” 189Hamlin Garland, “Under the Lion’s Paw” 192Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” 196Henry James, “The Real Thing” 202Kate Chopin, “Désirée’s Baby” 206Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” 210Stephen Crane, “The Blue Hotel” 214Frank Norris, “A Deal in Wheat” 218Edith Wharton, “The Other Two” 222Willa Cather, “A Wagner Matinée” 226Jack London, “To Build a Fire” 230Jean Toomer, “Blood-Burning Moon” 233F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Babylon Revisited” 236Ernest Hemingway, “Indian Camp” 241John Steinbeck, “The Chrysanthemums” 245Eudora Welty, “Petrified Man” 249William Faulkner, “Barn Burning” 253Flannery O’Connor, “The River” 257Tillie Olsen, “Help Her to Believe” [“I Stand Here Ironing”] 261Raymond Carver, “Cathedral” 265Louise Erdrich, “The Red Convertible” 269Susan Minot, “Hiding” 273Amy Tan, “The Joy Luck Club” 277Tim O’Brien, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” 281Jamaica Kincaid, “Columbus in Chains” 285Judith Cofer, “Nada” 289A Glossary for the Study of the American Short Story 293Selected Books for Further Study of the American Short Story 303Index 307