Short story is a work of fiction that is shorter than a novel or novelette. Most can be read at one sitting.
The short story is one of the oldest forms of literature. As early as 3000 B.C., brief fictional tales were written down in Egypt. During the 500’s B.C. in Greece, an author commonly known as Aesop popularized fables, which are short stories that express a moral through animal characters. The Bible contains short stories called parables, which teach moral lessons.
Some of the most famous short stories ever written make up two collections that appeared late in the Middle Ages. The Decameron (about 1349-1353) is a collection of 100 tales by Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer. The Canterbury Tales (about 1385-1400) is a book of 24 stories by Geoffrey Chaucer, an English poet.
During the 1800’s, many writers began to consider the short story as a separate form of literature. Edgar Allan Poe, an American author and literary critic, was perhaps the first important writer to analyze short stories as a distinct literary form. In some of his writings, Poe discussed the dramatic effects, such as fear and surprise, that could be achieved in a short story. The first book about short-story writing was The Philosophy of the Short-Story (1901) by Brander Matthews, an American critic. This book contained many of Poe’s ideas.
Short-story writers have developed a number of literary techniques, including the surprise ending and epiphany. Most surprise endings involve an unexpected event or a revealing explanation. Such endings were the specialty of O. Henry, an American short-story writer of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. He used surprise endings in “The Furnished Room” (1904), “The Gift of the Magi” (1905), and many other tales. Epiphany is a sudden comment, incident, or symbol that can be used at any point in a story to explain the meaning of a complex event. James Joyce, an Irish author of the early 1900’s, created this technique. He included it in a collection of short stories called Dubliners (1914).
Some writers of short stories concentrate on the events of ordinary life instead of emphasizing dramatic action. Anton Chekhov, a Russian writer, used such an approach in many stories, including “The Party” (1888) and “The Lady and the Dog” (1899). A number of later writers followed his style, including the American authors John Cheever and John Updike. American short-story writers such as Ann Beattie, Raymond Carver, and Joyce Carol Oates have used the form to record breakdowns in modern life.
