So, without further ado, here are 50 of literature's greatest short stories to entertain, distract, reassure and inspire – just what a short story should do. There have even been viral short story sensations: 2017's Cat Person, a tale of romance gone wrong, captured the cultural zeitgeist and sparked conversations around the world immediately after its publication in the New Yorker. Readers continue to show a huge appetite for the short story and it's no wonder when modern writers such as Lauren Groff, Daisy Johnson and Ottessa Moshfegh have turned out some of the most critically-acclaimed collections of recent years. Elsewhere, short stories offer unfamiliar readers an opportunity to dip their toe into a writer's style, or else see a different side of them altogether: James Joyce, Carson McCullers and Ian McEwan, arguably best-known for their novels, can all be accessed in a different way through their short fiction. Many of history's finest novelists have tried their hand at the short story, and some are even best-known for their prowess in this form. Think of John Cheever, Katherine Mansfield and Tessa Hadley, all of whom appear on this list. An analysis of a short story requires a basic knowledge of literary elements. It is no surprise to discover that Hardys capacity for inveterate revision is manifested in his tales as it was in his novels.
That is the outrageous ambition of the short story, that is its deepest faith, that is the greatness of its smallness.” You will often be asked to write a literary analysis. This is the definitive textual analysis of all of Hardys collected short stories, tracing the development of each from manuscript, through newspaper serial versions, galley proofs and revises to collected editions in volume form. If it could find that word, if it could utter that syllable, the entire universe would blaze up out of it with a roar. Myths often provide good examples of the use of symbols. “ the short story apologises for nothing. Myths tend to make less use of dialogue and repetition than some other types of traditional story. “The novel is the Wal-Mart, the Incredible Hulk, the jumbo jet of literature,” he wrote in his essay, The Ambition of the Short Story. The short story, says Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Steven Millhauser, has powers the novel only dreams of.