An American tale

We had another short story from an American author entered into the Global Short Story Competition overnight.

America has a strong association with the short story and I had always been taught that the modern short story began with American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Then I came across the excellent web entry http://sun.iwu.edu/~jplath/sschron.html, which pays tribute to the role of magazines in the development of the form and suggests an earlier chronology:


l74l -- First American magazines appear: Andrew Bradford's American Magazine and Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, and Historical Chronicle.

l789 -- Beginnings of short fiction in American magazines: "Azakia: A Canadian Story" in Monthly Miscellany and Vermont Magazine, "The Story of the Captain's Wife and an Aged Woman" in Gentleman and Lady's Town and Country Magazine 6 (Oct-Nov).

l8l5 -- The North American Review established. l8l9 -- Washington Irving's The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. published serially in the United States, and in volume form (l820) in England.

l82l -- The Saturday Evening Post established. l822 -- Irving's Bracebridge Hall: or, The Humorists published in England.

l824 -- Irving's Tales of a Traveller published in England.

l830-2 -- Nathaniel Hawthorne's earliest tales ("Provincial Tales" and "Seven Tales of My Native Land") published individually in Token, Salem Gazette, and Atlantic Souvenir.

Clearly, America has played a key role in the development of the genre for well over 250 years.

While we’re on the subject, I can heartily recommend the anthology containing some of the finest American short stories ever written, at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-American-Short-Stories-Century/dp/0395843677





Plenty of time to enter the October competition at www.inscribemedia.co.uk
　

John Dean