By Nava Atlas | On September 18, 2017 | Updated February 15, 2026 | Comments (0)
Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882 – 1961) was an American editor, poet, essayist, and novelist associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Plum Bun (1928) was one of four novels Fauset produced, along with There is Confusion (1924), The Chinaberry Tree (1931), and Comedy, American Style (1933).
In addition to the novels, Fauset’s output of shorter works was quite prodigious. And her eight-year tenure as the literary editor of the influential Crisis magazine was impressively productive, helping to launch the careers of a number of iconic writers of the era. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On July 3, 2017 | Updated December 17, 2024 | Comments (0)
Sometimes it’s best for an author to introduce his or her own story; sometimes it isn’t. Is it better to have a dispassionate eye trained on the story to unearth hidden meanings and perspectives, or is it the author who knows the tale best? Here is Edith Wharton’s own introduction to Ethan Frome, her 1911 classic short novel.
A reviewer from the time when the book was published observed of its spare language and brevity: ” It is so short, a long short story, and not one word can be skipped in the reading. It is such a complete and perfect piece of work that the reviewer can only say — read it.”
In her introduction, has Edith Wharton enlightened her readers, or complicated the haunting tale? An argument can be made for either side. Read More→
By Jason Horn | On June 11, 2017 | Updated February 7, 2023 | Comments (0)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning is perhaps best known for Sonnet 43. It opens with the infamously sappy line: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” Spoiler alert: there are ten ways.
Browning enjoyed much popular and critical success in her life, which continued for some time after her death in 1861, at age 55. Her popularity declined over much of the twentieth century, until interest in it was revived by new biographies and scholarly editions of her works.
Though celebrated for ‘Sonnet 43’, which cold-hearted cynics like myself see as trite and kitschy, the poem “A Dead Rose” (see below) is perhaps more indicative of the talent that made her famous. Read More→
By Taylor Jasmine | On June 10, 2017 | Updated March 27, 2023 | Comments (0)
Flannery O’Connor’s fiction has frequently been described as “grotesque,” and the author herself considered whether her work fit the description. In fiction of the grotesque, the focus is on the strange and ugly, often as an aspect of the physical body. It can also encompass themes of horror, death, and violence, with abhorrent characters.
At the end of the day, O’Connor preferred her work be considered realism, rather than grotesque or gothic.
Some of those who have analyzed the stories in her classic short story collection, A Good Man is Hard to Find, have begged to differ, but we’ll let the author herself have the last word. Excerpted from her essay “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction”: Read More→
By Jillian McKeown | On April 26, 2017 | Updated October 17, 2022 | Comments (0)
This analysis of The Giant Wistaria (1891) — a chilling short ghost story by classic feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman was contributed by Jillian McKeown, excerpted from Feminist Short Stories: Horror & Sci-Fi (Part 1).
It’s shocking once you’ve finished “The Giant Wistaria” to realize that it was published in 1891, when it seems as if it were written not so long ago.
The story takes place during two time periods, the 1700s and the 1800s. The former century begins with an English family and we’re dropped into the middle of the most scandalous of family dramas — their daughter has just given birth out of wedlock, and the parents are fleeing to England to escape any disgrace to their family name. Read More→
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