James Nagel - The American Short Story Handbook

This new series offers the student thorough and lively introductions to literary periods, movements, and, in some instances, authors and genres, from Anglo-Saxon to the Postmodern. Each volume is written by a leading specialist to be invitingly accessible and informative. Chapters are devoted to the coverage of cultural context, the provision of brief but detailed biographical essays on the authors concerned, critical coverage of key works, and surveys of themes and topics, together with bibliographies of selected further reading. Students new to a period of study or to a genre will discover all they need to know to orientate and ground themselves in their studies, in volumes that are as stimulating to read as they are convenient to use.

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The American Short Story Handbook

James Nagel

This edition first published 2015

2015 James Nagel

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nagel, James, author.

American short story handbook / James Nagel.First edition.

pages cm.(Wiley Blackwell literature handbooks)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-65541-2 (hardback)ISBN 978-0-470-65542-9 (paper) 1. Short stories, AmericanHistory and criticismHandbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title.

PS374.S5N336 2015

813'.0109dc23

2014032718

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Gwen Nagel, Freedom, New Hampshire, watercolor.

Part opening image: duncan1890 / iStockphoto

In her capacity as an editor at Blackwell, Emma Bennett suggested to me that I do this volume in the Handbook series the company was developing, and I am grateful for her encouragement and support. The entire production staff at Blackwell assisted me with tasks large and small and did so with grace, courtesy, and professionalism, and it was a pleasure to work with them.

My work on the short story has been assisted beyond measure by my position as the J. O. Eidson Distinguished Professor of American Literature at the University of Georgia, an appointment I enjoyed for more than two decades until my retirement in 2013. Serving as the inaugural scholar in that professorship has been the greatest honor of my life, and I am deeply humbled by the generosity of the Eidson family and the University of Georgia.

My doctoral students at the University of Georgia, many of whom have gone on to fine positions, contributed in many ways to my work on American fiction, none more so than Katherine Barrow, who, as a graduate student, served for many years as my research assistant. Her skills as a determined scholar, able to explore the dark and remote regions of the university library, will serve her well throughout her career in the field. Among my colleagues in the department, Hugh Ruppersburg and Hubert McAlexander offered wise counsel over the many years we worked together, and they have my deepest respect and gratitude. Steven Florczyk, Nicole Camastra, Robert Clark, Jon Dawson, and Katherine Barrow all completed their Ph.D. programs with me during the research for this volume, and I have learned a great deal about American literature, and life, from them. At Dartmouth College, where I now enjoy the position of Visiting Scholar, Donald Pease has offered friendship, guidance, and a tour of the campus. William C. Scott was especially gracious in providing encouragement and introductions to people on the research staff of Dartmouth Library, and I am forever appreciative of his generous humanity.

Among my fellow scholars in the American Literature Association, and especially in the Society for the Study of the American Short Story, an organization I serve as president, I have my greatest debt for encouragement, informed advice, and warm fellowship over more than three decades, particularly from Alfred Bendixen, Oliver Scheiding, Jeanne Reesman, Gloria Cronin, Donald Pizer, Jerome Loving, and Gary Scharnhorst. My most profound gratitude goes, as always, to my wife, Gwen, who is a constant source of humane good counsel and meticulous proofreading, and the example of her dedication to her art is a source of inspiration every day, as it has been for the last five decades.

I am delighted that this book has appeared in the series of volumes published by Wiley- Blackwell covering the entire sweep of American letters, from the earliest colonial period to the most recent contemporary literature. My book can claim a special significance because although scores of studies of the novel of the United States have appeared over the past century, many of them distinguished works of serious scholarship, relatively few full-length histories have been written about the short story since Fred Lewis Pattee published The Development of the American Short Story: An Historical Survey