Critical Survey of Short Fiction (Authors A-Dah, Vol. 3)

***This is volume 3 of 7 only.*** Critical Survey of Short Fiction is provided as an exhaustive examination of the history, characteristics, structure, and prime examples of literature's most popular form. There are three major divisions in this seven volume work, as outlined below: Essays, Authors, Current Authors. Essays are long, detailed, analytic treatments which synthesize a wide range of information, from the social and historical to the philosophic and religious to the technical and semantic. Clusters of essays examine the genres roots in such ancient forms as the ballot, the Bible narrative, the medieval epic; its development through modern chronological.; Its unique evolution in particular countries, regions, and ethnic groups. Because of the nature of short stories, the authors a Dah is arranged by authors rather than by works. Each author article includes at the beginning a list of printable short fiction works and brief sections discussing other literary forms in which the author wrote, influences on his work as well as the influence of his work on the writing of others, characteristics of his short fiction as a whole, and his biography. Finally the current authors section is a result of an invitation to several hundred current authors to contribute a one-page description of their work - their background, style, thematic concerns, and the like. This particular volume deals with authors from A through Dah, including such authors as Isaac Asimov, Samuel Beckett, Pearl S Buck, Truman Capote, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Roald Dahl.