The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story

by Blanche Gelfant (Editor), Lawrence Graver (With)

Overview

Esteemed critic Blanche Gelfant's brilliant companion gathers together lucid essays on major writers and themes by some of the best literary critics in the United States. Part 1 is comprised of articles on stories that share a particular theme, such as "Working Class Stories" or "Gay and Lesbian Stories." The heart of the book, however, lies in Part 2, which contains more than one hundred pieces on individual writers and their work, including Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Eudora Welty, Andre Debus, Zora Neal Hurston, Anne Beattie, Bharati Mukherjee, J. D. Salinger, and Jamaica Kincaid, as well as engaging pieces on the promising new writers to come on the scene.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231504959
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	04/21/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	952
Lexile:	1400L (what's this?)
File size:	18 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Blanche H. Gelfant is the author of The American City Novel, Women Writing in America: Voices in Collage, and Cross-Cultural Reckonings: A Triptych of Russian, American and Canadian Texts. For many years she was the Robert E. Maxwell Professor in the Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth. In recognition of her contributions as critic and scholar, the American Literature Division of the Modern Language Association has honored professor Gelfant with the Jay B. Hubbell Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literary Studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I. Thematic Essays
The American Short Story Cycle
The American Short Story, 1807-1900
The African American Short Story
The Asian American Short Story
The Chicano-Latino Short Story
The Ecological Short Story
Lesbian and Gay Short Stories
The Native American Short Story
Non-English American Short Stories
The American Working-Class Short Story
American Short Stories of the Holocaust
Part II. Individual Writers and Their Work
Alice Adams (1926-1999)
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
John Barth (1930- )
Donald Barthelme (1931-1989)
Rick Bass (1959- )
Richard Bausch (1945- )
Charles Baxter (1947- )
Ann Beattie (1947- )
Saul Bellow (1915- )
Gina Berriault (1926- )
Doris Betts (1932- )
Paul Bowles (1910-1999)
Kay Boyle (1902-1992)
Ray Bradbury (1920- )
Kate Braverman (1950- )
Larry Brown (1951- )
Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987)
Hortense Calisher (1911- )
Truman Capote (1924-1984)
Raymond Carver (1938-1988)
Willa Cather (1873-1947)
John Cheever (1912-1982)
Sandra Cisneros (1954- )
Walter Van Tilburg Clark (1909-1971)
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (1930- )
Robert Coover (1932- )
Lydia Davis (1947- )
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1953- )
Andre Dubus (1936-1999)
Deborah Eisenberg (1946- )
Stanley Elkin (1930-1995)
George P. Elliott (1918-1980)
John Fante (1909-1983)
James T. Farrell (1904-1979)
William Faulkner (1897-1962)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
Richard Ford (1944- )
Mary Gaitskill (1954- )
William H. Gass (1924- )
Ellen Gilchrist (1935- )
Herbert Gold (1924- )
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
Amy Hempel (1951- )
Mary Hood (1946- )
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965)
Jamaica Kincaid (1949- )
Ring Lardner (1885-1933)
David Leavitt (1961- )
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929- )
Meridel Le Sueur (1900-1996)
Shirley Geok-lin Lim (1944- )
Jack London (1876-1916)
David Wong Louie (1954- )
Norman Mailer (1923- )
Bernard Malamud (1914-1986)
Bobbie Anne Mason (1940- )
Mary McCarthy (1912-1989)
Elizabeth McCracken (1966- )
Carson McCullers (1917-1967)
Thomas McGuane (1939- )
James Alan McPherson (1943- )
Nicholasa Mohr (1938- )
Lorrie Moore (1957- )
Toshio Mori (1910-1980)
Bharati Mukherjee (1940- )
Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977)
Joyce Carol Oates (1938- )
Tim O'Brien (1946- )
Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
John O'Hara (1905-1970)
Tillie Olsen (1913?- )
Simon Ortiz (1941- )
Cynthia Ozick (1928- )
Grace Paley (1922- )
Américo Paredes (1915-1999)
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
Jayne Anne Phillips (1952- )
Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980)
William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) (1862-1910)
E. Annie Proulx (1935- )
Thomas Pynchon (1937- )
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953)
Alberto Alvaro Ríos (1952- )
Philip Roth (1933- )
Damon Runyon (1880-1946)
J. D. Salinger (1919- )
Bienvenido N. Santos (1911-1996)
William Saroyan (1908-1981)
Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
Leslie Marmon Silko (1948- )
Jean Stafford (1915-1979)
Wallace Stegner (1909-1993)
John Steinbeck (1902-1968)
Elizabeth Tallent (1954- )
Peter Taylor (1917-1994)
James Thurber (1894-1961)
John Updike (1932- )
Helena María Viramontes (1954- )
Anna Lee Walters (1946- )
Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989)
Sylvia A. Watanabe (1953- )
Eudora Welty (1909- )
Edith Wharton (1862-1937)
Joy Williams (1944- )
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
Tobias Wolff (1945- )
Richard Wright (1908-1960)
Hisaye Yamamoto (1921- )
Anzia Yezierska (1881-1970)
Index

Editorial Reviews

Particularly useful because it includes contemporary authors who are difficult to find . . . The writing is uniformly excellent, and the efficient index includes authors, story titles, book titles, and subjects.

J. E. Sheets

Gelfant. . . has edited an eminently useful work. While there are other books on short stories and on the authors included here, this new resource is unusually well done. The first 100 pages are devoted to thematic essays that focus on the form of the short story, the development of the genre, several distinct subject types (e.g., short stories of the Holocaust or of the working class, and four different ethnic groups (African American, Asian American, Chicano Latino American, and Native American. These especially well-crafted essays weave history and context around specific stories to illustrate points for further discussion....this wonderful resource is essential for academic libraries and is highly recommended for public and school libraries.

Neal Wyatt

Gelfant, former Robert E. Maxwell Professor in the Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth, has edited an eminently useful work. While there are other books on short stories and on the authors included here, this resource is unusually well done. The first 100 pages are devoted to thematic essays that focus on the form of the short story, the development of the genre, several distinct subject types (e.g., short stories of the Holocaust or of the working class), and four different ethnic groups (African American, Asian American, Chicano Latino American, and Native American). These especially well-crafted essays weave history and context around specific stories to illustrate points for further discussion. The remainder of the book is devoted to over 100 individual author essays that focus on reading for pleasure and understanding rather than critical interpretation. Entries discuss the development of each author and the content and meaning of his or her major short stories. From Hemingway and Raymond Carver to Elizabeth McCracken and Lorrie Moore, the writers included represent a wide range of time periods and styles. It is, perhaps, the bane of any collection that space limits who can be included, and this work does omit some authors most readers would expect to see. Kate Chopin and Stephen Crane, for example, are discussed only in the thematic essays. The collection also offers little on new short story writers who are expanding both the genre and its readership. Despite these small questions of coverage, this wonderful resource is essential for academic libraries and is highly recommended for public and school libraries.-Neal Wyatt, Chesterfield Cty. P.L., VA. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This volume offers a wealth of information and insight into the work of many of the finest short story writers in literary history. Following an introduction by critic Blanche H. Gelfant, articles explore stories that share particular themes and that give a sense of what makes a writer unique and an understanding of the writer's fictional world. The heart of the book comprises about 100 pieces on both established and new writers. Each entry offers a brief biographical sketch, an overview of the author's career and major motifs, and analyses of at least two stories. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

This reference will be well-used by high school students seeking resources for the ubiquitous literary 'term paper.' And in so doing, they may begin to develop a 'sense of what makes a writer unique.'

ALA Bibliography - Virginia Wallace

Here are the categories of a postcanonical era with a vengeance: not just stories with a thematic cycle but also those written by African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicano-Latinos, lesbians and gays, Native Americans, non-English speakers, members of the working class, people concerned with the Holocaust, and even those with ecological interests.

American Literary Scholarship

The Columbia Companion offers deeper coverage of American short stories... [this] would be an asset to library collections at the high-school and college levels.

Booklist

Each entry presents a critique of at least two of an author's stories, a biliography of the story collections, and recommendations for more sustained critiques of the author's work.

American Literature

Particularly useful because it includes contemporary authors who are difficult to find... The writing is uniformly excellent, and the efficient index includes authors, story titles, book titles, and subjects.

Choice - J. E. Sheets

The Columbia Companion offers deeper coverage of American short stories... [this] would be an asset to library collections at the high-school and college levels.

Booklist

Particularly useful because it includes contemporary authors who are difficult to find... The writing is uniformly excellent, and the efficient index includes authors, story titles, book titles, and subjects.

Choice - J.E. Sheets

This reference will be well-used by high school students seeking resources for the ubiquitous literary 'term paper.' And in so doing, they may begin to develop a 'sense of what makes a writer unique.'

— Virginia Wallace

ALA Bibliography

Particularly useful because it includes contemporary authors who are difficult to find... The writing is uniformly excellent, and the efficient index includes authors, story titles, book titles, and subjects.

— J. E. Sheets

Choice