The Oxford book of English short stories

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Title:

The Oxford book of English short stories

Author:

Byatt, A. S., 1936- Byatt, Antonia Susan.

ISBN:

9780199561605

Publication Information:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2009.

Physical Description:

xxx, 439 s. ; 20 cm.

General Note:

Originally published: 1998.

Contents:

Introduction The Sacristan of St. Botolph -- The Haunted House -- Relics of General Chasse: A Tale of Antwerp -- A Mere Interlude -- Little Brother -- Two Doctors -- Behind the Shade -- 'Wireless'. Under the Knife -- A White Night -- The Toys of Peace -- The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown -- Some Talk of Alexander -- The Reverent Wooing of Archibald -- Solid Objects -- The Man who Loved Islands -- A Tragedy in Green A Widow's Quilt -- Nuns at Luncheon -- Landlord of the Crystal Fountain -- On the Edge of the Cliff -- A Dream of Winter -- An Englishman's Home -- The Destructors . The Waterfall -- The Troll -- The Blush -- At Hiruharama -- My Flannel Knickers -- Enoch's Two Letters -- Dream Cargoes -- Telephone -- My Story -- The Kiss -- The Beauty of the Dawn Shift -- Solid Geometry -- Dead Languages.

Abstract:

A fresh contemporary design for A. S. Byatt's celebrated anthology of English short stories The Oxford Book of English Short Stories.The 37 stories featured here are selected from the 19th and 20th centuries, by authors ranging from Dickens, Trollope, and Hardy to J. G. Ballard, Angela Carter, and Ian McEwan. H. Lawrence's exploration of a consciousness slowly detaching itself from its world. There are exuberant stories by Saki and Waugh, Wodehouse and Firbank, with a particularly English range from high irony to pure orchestrated farce. The very range and scope of the collection celebrates the eccentric differences and excellences of English short stories. Some of A. S. Byatt's choices clearly take their place in the grand tradition of story-telling, while others are more unusual. Many break all the rules of unity of tone and narrative, appearing to be one kind of story before unexpectedly turning into another. They pack together comedy and tragedy, farce and delicacy, elegance and the grotesque, with language as various as the subject matter. As A. S. Byatt explains: 'My only criterion was that those stories I selected should be startling and satisfying, and if possible make the hairs on the neck prickle with excitement, aesthetic or narrative'.

Subject Term:

Short stories, English.

Added Author:

Byatt, A. S., 1936- Byatt, Antonia Susan.

Added Title:

English short stories.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025517059	823.0108 B993.O 2009	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

From Anthony Trollope, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy, through Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, D.H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf, right up to Graham Greene, J.G. Ballard, Angela Carter, Ian McEwan, and many others, The Oxford Book of English Short Stories encompasses comedy and tragedy, farce and delicacy, elegance and the grotesque. Edited by noted novelist A. S. Byatt, the thirty-seven stories gathered here range from social realism to surreal fantasy, from rural poverty to war-blitzed London, from tales of the supernatural to precise delineations of the mundane, all unified by Byatts demanding criteria that the works be both startling and satisfying, and if possible make the hairs on the neck prickle with excitement, aesthetic or narrative. For short story lovers and anyone unable to resist the enchantments of the English imagination, The Oxford Book of English Short Stories offers a wide array of unforgettable pleasures, now reissued with a fresh, contemporary feel.