Modern American Short Story Sequences

Its status as a genre unto itself often disputed, the short story sequence is a hybrid organism which defies the stereotypes imputed to more conventionally recognized forms of narrative, such as the short story and the novel. By resisting precise definition, it lays down a critical challenge to decode its perplexing formal ambiguities. Modern American Short Story Sequences meets this challenge by suggesting an entirely new means of inquiry. Gathering together eleven new full-length essays, this book is an invitation to reconsider the short story sequence as a tradition proper, one formed in the twentieth-century crucible of American literature and one whose very inscrutability continues to provoke intense debate in the realm of fiction studies.

First sentence: Many critics of Henry James are aware that after he completed the arduous task of selecting his novels and tales for Scribner's or The New York Edition (1907-9), revising all the chosen texts and composing his dense theoretical Prefaces, James went on to write something important other than his now much interpreted travel memoirs and autobiographical volumes.

Year

1995

Language

English

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Editions

5

Pages

239

ISBN

9780521430104

Data source: Wikidata