Small is beautiful: the heyday of the short story | thearticle

What is the worthiest literary genre, poetry, drama or prose? The jury has been out on that one for centuries. However, when it comes to evaluating the formats of prose fiction, the case

would appear to be very much closed. Simply stated, quantity is quality, with novels commanding the most respect, novellas deemed the next best thing, and the humble short story lowest of

all in the pecking order. Many readers want novels because short stories don’t satisfy. Consequently, many publishers want novels because short stories don’t sell. Over the years, several

misguided assumptions have hardened into standard beliefs. Firstly, novelists’ short story collections are side projects, perhaps even vanity projects, which are almost always inferior to

their long-form work. Secondly, those who only write short stories are mere dabblers and dilettantes, lacking in scope and imagination, and unable to go the distance and last the pace. By

extension, those who only read short stories are those who prefer a quick, easy, undemanding fix over something longer, more complex, and ultimately more stimulating.  Unfortunately, these

generalisations prevail. But it wasn’t ever thus. The quarter century before the First World War constituted a prolonged heyday for the British short story. Gone was the appetite for the

three-volume novel; instead readers embraced the proliferation of short fiction. Practitioners such as MR James, Katherine Mansfield and Saki acquired such a dedicated readership that they

didn’t need to write novels. Great stories by DH Lawrence, GK Chesterton or HG Wells could sit side by side with the authors’ novels, not as pale imitations but as equal companion pieces.

Short stories studded collections and anthologies during these glory years, but they also filled the pages of new magazines and journals. _The Strand_ appeared in 1891 and its phenomenal

gap-in-the-market success paved the way for the likes of _Black and White_, _The Yellow Book _and _The English Review_. Stories by big authors promised big sales: _The Strand_’s publication

of Arthur Conan Doyle’s latest Sherlock Holmes adventure could guarantee sales of half a million copies for that issue. Stories by Rudyard Kipling, Henry James or Joseph Conrad stamped a

publication with a certain cachet. Magazines raised profiles, cemented reputations and demonstrated what magic could be produced with a reduced word-count and an abundance of talent. An

excellent new book showcases a wide range of stories from this period. More a pick-and-mix sampler than a comprehensive greatest hits, _The Golden Age of British Short Stories 1890-1914_

contains numerous delights. Its editor, Philip Hensher, previously presided over two other Penguin compilations of British short fiction, one dealing with contemporary stories, the other

covering stories through the ages. Centering solely on the late Victorian and Edwardian era, his latest offering has clearly been a labour of love. He calls the age “one of the richest and

most accomplished moments in literary history” and is effusive in his praise for his selected tales. We can carp at some of his omissions (where are John Buchan, Somerset Maugham and PG

Wodehouse?) and question his sweeping statements (is this moment in literature really so remarkable, one that is “never likely to be repeated”?) but it is far more productive just to read

and admire one fine story after another. Just as the golden age of detective fiction encompasses Queens of Crime Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers and Ngaio Marsh, and a

host of lesser-known commoners, so too does the golden age of British short stories comprise both illustrious writers who are still read today and more marginal figures, some of whom have

since drifted into obscurity. Accordingly, Hensher incorporates work by past masters – Kipling, Conrad, Wells, Lawrence – and less familiar names. In the main, the ignored or forgotten

manage to hold their own alongside the great and the good. Mary Mann’s _Women o’ Dulditch_ follows grudging Samaritan Dinah as she swallows her pride to help an old enemy in their Norfolk

village. The remarkable feature is the colourful dialect: “She’s a-dyin’, I tell ye,” Dinah says, berating the woman’s feckless, neglectful husband. “Not a mite o’ nouragement i’ th’ house,

sech as a pore suff’rin’ woman like Car’line’s in need of.” There is charity of a different nature in May Sinclair’s crisply comic _Wilkinson’s Wife_, in which a society woman tries to bag a

man by securing his “deliverance” from his unattractive and uncultured other half. Some of the featured female writers achieved success, and anonymity, by working under male _noms de

plume_. Somerville and Ross, a.k.a. Edith Somerville and “Martin Ross”, the pseudonym of Violet Martin, formed a literary partnership which produced winning stories like _Trinket’s Colt_, a

caper revolving around horse-theft from an Irish country estate. Australian-born Mary Chavelita Dunne adopted the pen-name George Egerton and was strongly associated with the “New Woman”

feminist ideal of the 1890s. Her atmospheric tale about a young man who, one rainy November night, invites a dazed, soaked and starving woman into his Embankment bachelor pad (or “diggings”)

builds in intrigue and momentum. In the cold light of day we learn of the cause of her distress while marvelling at the hints of missed opportunities and neat turns of phrase (“It was one

of those beastly mornings, fine under protest, with a sun that looked as if he had been making a night of it”). Hensher resurrects two writers who once captivated readers with fiction set

against the backdrop of London’s East End. Arthur Morrison’s story is a grittily realistic slice of working-class life. Israel Zangwill’s tale is a more playful affair about a failed love

match within the Jewish community and the attempt to reclaim an engagement ring. It is refreshing to see other overlooked writers given a new lease of life, from author and translator Ella

d’Arcy to prolific powerhouse Barry Pain – to someone called JE Malloch. Hensher’s two-line biography states that nothing is known about the identity or life of this magazine-contributor.

Unsurprisingly, it is the stories from canonical writers which make the biggest impression. The collection is bookended by two classics, opening with Kipling’s perennial _The Man Who Would

be King_ and closing with Lawrence’s study of sexual tension and revenge, _The Prussian Officer_. In between there are such gems as Henry James’ enigmatic _The Figure in the Carpet_,

Conrad’s intense tale of duality and duplicity _The Secret Sharer_, and one of EM Forster’s self-styled “fantasies” _The Celestial Omnibus_. Wells’ _The Argonauts of the Air_ takes flight

and soars, MR James’ _The Treasure of Abbot Thomas_ is a masterclass in heart-stopping terror, and EW Hornung’s _Gentlemen and Players_ proves to be one of the more enjoyable outings for his

“Amateur Cracksman” anti-hero Raffles – here torn between his twin-pursuits of cricketing and stealing. “What’s the satisfaction of taking a man’s wicket,” he tells his friend Bunny, “when

you want his spoons?” Several stories stand out. Saki, once memorably described by VS Pritchett as “the man in the incredible waistcoat who throws a spanner in the teacup”, swaps his

trademark satire for a foray into the uncanny. _Gabriel-Ernest_ is a teasing, shocking tale about a savage, “strange-eyed, strange-tongued” youth who may well have poached game in the

protagonist’s woodland property – and, with his appetite for “child-flesh”, may also be behind the disappearance of a local boy. George Gissing, best known for his 1891 novel _New Grub

Street_, a portrait of struggling writers and hack journalists toiling in “the valley of the shadow of books”, switches his focus in _The Peace Bringer_ to a dying man’s last pleasures and

late wake-up call. The ailing Jaffray employs Mrs Lanyon to keep him company and play the piano. When she ends the transaction and leaves him he is distraught. He turns his attention to the

wife he spurned, only to learn the hard way that it is not love she feels for him but pity. The home truth she fells him with is simple and logical: “I was never able – never in my life – to

have affection for anyone who had none for me.”  Hensher’s prize pick is Arnold Bennett’s _The Death of Simon Fuge_. At over fifty pages it is the longest story in the anthology and one of

few that can be described as truly immersive. It was published in Bennett’s second collection of stories _The Grim Smile of the Five Towns_ in 1907, a year before his breakthrough novel _The

Old Wives’ Tale_. Boiled down to its basics, it tells of London-based Loring’s trip to the Five Towns (Bennett’s fictionalised version of the Potteries), an expedition which turns out to be

both absorbing and edifying. Out of his comfort zone in the provincial, industrial north, Loring finds commonalities with the south and also stark differences, enjoys a series of diverse,

eye-opening experiences, and pieces together key events in the life of a recently deceased painter who was native to “this strange parcel of England”. In his bibliographical note to Bennett,

Hensher makes mention of Virginia Woolf’s “toxic but naïve essay about his ingenious and well-made work” which “continues to mislead readers about its profound merits.” That essay from 1921

was _Modern Fiction_, and it took the form of a hatchet-job on Bennett, Wells and John Galsworthy. Woolf offers faint praise to Bennett (he is a fine “workman”) but then goes on to dismiss

all three authors as “materialists”. For her, Bennett’s characters “live abundantly, even unexpectedly, but it remains to ask how do they live, and what do they live for?” As a critical

essay it is self-satisfied and wrong-headed, with Woolf stubbornly, maybe even deliberately, ignoring Bennett’s expert ability to depict people and place. Hensher is right to knock it. He

could have strengthened his point by quoting Bennett’s biographer Margaret Drabble, who called _The Death of Simon Fuge_ “one of the greatest short stories in the English language.”

Hensher’s bite-sized biographies contain other noteworthy comments. There is curious trivia: EF Benson, author of the _Mapp and Lucia_ novels, his mother and four of his five siblings were

homosexual; Charlotte Mew committed suicide “using the cheapest poison available”; Somerville and Ross were politically divergent, the former an Irish nationalist, the latter a Unionist.

There are also witty phrasings, intentional or otherwise: Saki was raised by “forceful” aunts; Thomas Hardy’s Dorchester house is “a work of stunning incompetence”. It is a pity that these

biographies do not give the publication date of each writer’s story. It is also a pity that some of Hensher’s tales fall outside his designated 1890-1914 timeframe: the Kipling story was

published in 1888, Oscar Wilde’s _The Sphinx without a Secre_t in 1887, and WS Gilbert’s _An Elixir of Love_ even earlier in 1876. Dubious dating is one problem, unappealing content is

another. Not every story entrances. A stodgy old tale from GK Chesterton makes for a baffling choice when we consider that this most industrious of writers left behind such a plentiful

oeuvre. _An Encounter_ is one of the less involving episodes from James Joyce’s _Dubliners_. Similarly, there are more sparkling gems to be found within Mansfield’s five collections of short

stories than the comparatively lacklustre _The Woman at the Store_. But then there is no pleasing everyone, especially regarding an anthology of 34 stories by 34 different writers.

Fortunately, there is much to admire and much to be surprised at. Mew was more famous as a poet, Hardy more celebrated as a novelist and a poet, and Rebecca West more renowned for her

non-fiction, yet all three deliver compelling short stories. In an inspired move, Hensher shuns Sherlock Holmes and gives us a tale of the unexpected from Conan Doyle: not one about a

Baskerville hound but a Brazilian cat. Again and again we come across stories which not only entertain but also show an awareness of, and an engagement with, the issues of the day, whether

social, political or sexual. A good, short, self-contained story leaves the reader wanting more. For the most part, Hensher’s rich pickings have that desired effect, serving as incentives to

delve deeper into undiscovered work, both by new faces and old hands. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important

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