Short Stories and Short Fictions, 1880–1980

THE “MODERN SPINSTER'S LOT” AND FEMALE SEXUALITY IN ELLA HEPWORTH DIXON'S ONE DOUBTFUL HOUR

“…In her discussion of the generally ''plotless'' stories of the Yellow Book, Clare Hanson has noted the technique of revealing psychological complexity through an ''apparently trivial incident'', claiming that ''the psychological sketch was the particular province of women writers of the period who were eager to explore what seemed to them uncharted areas of women's subjective experience''. 24 Many of the stories did deal with previously uncharted areas of women's lives, such as their responses to growing old, their new experiences of living and working in the city, and the glimmerings of sexual freedom attendant on the emergence of the New Woman and the suffragette. In their first appearances in women's journals, newspapers and the popular magazines of the day, they would be printed alongside topical articles, advertisements and other illustrations, working in dialogue with the agenda of the periodical.…”

Comic short fiction and its variety

“…6 Clare Hanson observes that the comic short story carries a strong stylisation of form and "depends for much of its effect on the reader's familiarity with the code employed and on his ability to recognise departures from it". 7 This innate understanding of the rules, and the necessity of expressive brevity both have their foundation in the techniques that Mark Twain described in 1897, whose markers of the comic short story are summarised below:…”

Short stories of the southern seas

“…As the borders of the nation grew to include an even wider array of countries and peoples, '[t]he "native" or exotic found its way into English literature as a new arena for fantasy, replacing the romantic medieval topos of Morris and Rossetti'. 6 Much of Becke's success came from his ability to capitalise on this growing art form in British, American, and Australian newspapers. Establishing himself as the British authority on the South Seas, Becke initially found a career as a writer for colonial periodicals, 'publishing stories, sketches, and reviews' in the Sydney Bulletin and elsewhere, as well as writing '"London Notes" for the Sydney Evening News'.…”