The Victorian Short Story

This book is a study of the development of the Victorian short story, which by the 1890s and the appearance of the Sherlock Holmes stories, had become the most popular literary product of the late nineteenth century. The book examines the work of nine distinguished writers: William Carleton and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu serve to illustrate the change from a largely oral tradition to a more sophisticated understanding of the nature of the reading public. Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope exemplify significant changes in the relationship between an author and his audience. Thomas Hardy insisted on older, more traditional modes of narrative, but his storytelling sense had been sharpened by experiences with many editors of periodicals who believed they were serving the 'modern' public. The other writers treated at length are Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells.

ISBN 0521258995   DEWEY edition DC19 ISBN13 9780521258999 (What's this?)   Pages 224 Publisher Cambridge University Press   Weight (grammes) 422 Imprint Cambridge University Press   Published in Cambridge Format Hardback   Height (mm) 216 Publication date 19 Jun 1986   Width (mm) 138 Library of Congress PR829 .O7 1986   Spine width (mm) 18 DEWEY 823.0109   Academic level Tertiary education

List of illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction: problems in defining a genre; 1. William Carleton: elements of the folk tradition; 2. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: developing the horror tale; 3. Charles Dickens: establishing rapport with the public; 4. Anthony Trollope: baking tarts for readers of periodicals; 5. Thomas Hardy: an older tradition of narrative; 6. Robert Louis Stevenson: many problems, some successes; 7. Rudyard Kipling: the Anglo-Indian stories; 8. Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells: different concepts of a short story; Epilogue: the triumph of a genre; Notes; Index.

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