Selected Short Stories of William Dean Howells

The short stories of William Dean Howells have been largely unknown to the reading public, at least partly because of their general unavailability and because of the difficulties of identifying, among Howells's voluminous short writings, those that are clearly short stories. Selected Short Stories of William Dean Howells includes both the full texts of thirteen of Howells's stories, each preceded by a thorough critical analysis, and an annotated short story list identifying and discussing all of Howells's short stories. The book pays particular attention to the period after 1890, when Howells, both for personal and intellectual reasons, moved beyond realism to the fields of psychological realism and psychic romance. More than his novels or other writings, Howells's late stories reveal his fascination with psychology and his interest in psychic phenomena, especially those that seem to shed light on the question of immortality. These forgotten stories expose a side of Howells unknown to many Americanists.