By Nava Atlas | On July 6, 2020 | Updated August 28, 2022 | Comments (0)
“Monday or Tuesday,” a 1921 short story by Virginia Woolf, appeared in the only collection of stories she published during her lifetime. The title of the collection was also Monday or Tuesday. It was later anthologized in A Haunted House and Other Short Stories (1944), which contained six of the eight original stories.
First published by Hogarth Press, the small publishing company run by Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Mr. Woolf deemed it the worst book ever printed due to a plethora of typographical errors. They were corrected in later editions.
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By Nava Atlas | On May 20, 2020 | Updated April 28, 2023 | Comments (0)
“The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield is a widely anthologized short story by the New Zealand-born master of this form of fiction. It was first published as the lead story in the collection The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922).
Warren S. Walker wrote in an essay on the story: ‘The most frequently anthologized of Katherine Mansfield’s works, ‘The Garden Party’ has long enjoyed a reputation for near-perfection in the art of the short story.’ In her time, Mansfield was seen as one of the prime innovators of the short story form.” Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On May 4, 2020 | Updated August 29, 2022 | Comments (0)
Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman (1852 – 1930), more commonly known as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, was an American novelist and short story writer. Though no longer widely read, her 1891 short story, “A New England Nun,” is widely anthologized and still studied.
Born in Randolph, Massachusetts, Freeman came from New England Puritan stock. A prolific writer of novels, short stories, children’s books, and poems, her work has been largely forgotten, though it’s widely available online, all of it being in the public domain.
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By Nava Atlas | On March 30, 2020 | Updated December 21, 2025 | Comments (0)
“The Gilded Six-Bits” is a 1933 short story by Zora Neale Hurston, and the one which possibly launched her as a fiction writer. It wasn’t her first story by any means, but the one that caught the attention of the publisher, Bertram Lippincott.
Lippincott read “The Gilded Six-Bits” in an issue of Story magazine, and was so impressed that he wrote Zora to see whether she might be working on a full-length novel. She wasn’t, but told him she was. She got her serious about starting her first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, and it was ready in three months.
Make sure to read the analysis of “The Gilded Six Bits.” In Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography, Robert E. Hemenway encapsulates the story : Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On January 10, 2020 | Updated May 10, 2024 | Comments (1)
The short story, “A Matter of Prejudice” by Kate Chopin (1850 – 1904), the American author best remembered for The Awakening (1899), is one of many short works by this prolific author.
It was written in 1893, first published in 1895, and included in Chopin’s collection A Night in Acadie (1897).
Much of Chopin’s literary output preceded The Awakening, a novella; the poor reception it received is thought to have discouraged her. It was often vilified by the press, and frequently banned. Decades later it became a feminist classic, and revitalized interest in her other writings. Read More→
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