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THE RISE
OF THE TALE
A Preliminary Checklist of Collections of Short Fiction Published 1820–29
in the Corvey Collection
Tim Killick
I
Conventional studies of the short fictional form, whilst acknowledging the existence of the genre in the early nineteenth century, have nevertheless viewed that period as one of relative infertility. Ian Reid, for example, despite arguing that ‘the short story is in essence a Romantic form: the Romantic prose form’, describes the output of short fiction by English writers of the nineteenth century as ‘virtually negligible’. [1] T. O. Beachcroft, in The Modest Art (1968), limits his analysis of the Romantic period to three female authors (Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, and Mary Russell Mitford), and of the early nineteenth century in general declares: ‘If, however, we ask ourselves where are the short stories that correspond to a single incident, to a chapter of, say, Jane Austen, the answer is that they do not exist.’ [2]
This consensus is derived in the main from a theoretical approach that differentiates between the ‘true’ or ‘modern’ ‘short story’ and short fiction in general. In the case of the former, genre is defined not only in terms of magnitude but also meritocratically by stylistic, thematic, and qualitative factors. In the view of many critics, the short story is a genre that differs in certain ways from the more diffuse form of short fiction. In Ian Reid’s words, the above stance contends that ‘there may be certain formal characteristics which distinguish the short story from stories that just happen to be short.’ [3]
In historical terms, according to this model, which originates to some extent from Edgar Allan Poe’s influential theorising on the subject, developments in short fiction are considered to be relatively minor until the 1830s and 1840s: the decades which saw the advent of certain key, predominantly American, writers. [4] Washington Irving is sometimes included here, but in the main it is Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville who are cited as the founding fathers of the short story. The works of the above authors and the subsequent development of the form in America in the mid-nineteenth century are considered to dominate the formation of the modern concept of English language short fiction.
While there is a strong argument for a substantial increase in the complexity of the short fictional form in the works of these American authors, as well as a subsequent development in the understanding of short fiction and output of the form in early and mid-Victorian British writers, the contention underlying the present report is that the stories of these individuals represent only a part of the form’s generic maturity. It is hoped that the following checklist will serve as a starting point for a more dispassionate survey of the critically neglected works of the period, many of which found large contemporary readerships. By not attempting to gauge the merit of its entries, the report’s aim is to move some way beyond the traditional view of short fictional history as being dominated by the genius and vision of a few authors, toward a more inclusive and incremental view of the genesis of the genre. Wendell Harris, in his comprehensive British Short Fiction in the Nineteenth Century (1979), has begun this process by engaging in a far more thorough critique of some of the period’s less celebrated authors, and by compiling a useful bibliography. Harris’s work, however, charts the genre’s development through the whole of the nineteenth century, and focuses predominantly on ‘the arrival of the true short story in the 1880s and 1890s’—it therefore contains only a limited analysis of the particular period now under view. [5] The bibliographic appendix to Harris’s work contains forty-seven authors of short fiction, many of whom issued multiple titles. Of these only ten of the included titles were published in the 1820s, five of which are the various parts of Mary Russell Mitford’s Our Village series.
The checklist’s aim, therefore, is to disclose more fully the 1820s as the period immediately preceding the traditional focal point for the beginning of the ‘modern’ short story. Such an overview will hopefully allow examination of those trends and innovations which paved the way for the later important works, as well as those modes which would die out. Although the works of this period which do in fact anticipate later modes provide the greatest interest from a modern perspective, it is important to remember that these works were not necessarily indicative of the state of the whole genre, or recognised as belonging to a certain trend by contemporary critics or readers: a fact which the inclusive nature of the checklist will hopefully make evident. Another point that it is crucial to bear in mind, one which Wendell Harris is careful to make, is that the terminology used in any discussion of pre-twentieth-century short fiction is imposed retrospectively. That is to say, during the nineteenth century terms such as ‘tale’, ‘novel’, ‘sketch’, and ‘story’ had far looser definitions than we might wish to give them today, and the works I have listed here would therefore not have been separated out so decisively from the general body of fiction at the time.
The single decade selected, the 1820s, yielded nearly 150 titles, notwithstanding the formal limitations applied and the fact that only the works present in the Corvey collection were considered. The chosen titles are restricted to works published in Britain which, whilst presented in the form of a conventional work of fiction, consist of two or more tales. In some instances the parameters are slightly extended beyond the decade, most notably in the case of works published in series. Though some longer works have been excluded there is no absolute word or page limit.
Exclusions from the checklist include:
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Works containing two very long tales, both of which are essentially novels: e.g. the first two Series of Sayings and Doings; or, Sketches from Life (1828) by Theodore Hook are included, but the Third Series, which contains only two tales in 3 volumes.
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Works consisting of an assembly of very short sketches, jokes, anecdotes and observations: e.g. the anonymous work The Humourist: A Collection of Entertaining Tales, Anecdotes, Repartees, Witty Sayings, Epigrams, Bon Mots, Jeu d’esprits, &c. (1819-22), which contains several medium-length tales but in the main consists of anecdotal quotations and stories only a few lines in length.
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Works that, whilst being told in a fictional style, are essentially non-fictional: e.g. Tales of a Grandfather (1828-31) by Walter Scott, a series of historical narratives for children.
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Works that, though containing some tales, consist mainly of other literary forms—poetry, non-narrative essays, drama etc.: e.g. A Fireside Book, or the Account of a Christmas Spent at Old Court (1828) by Charles Taylor includes six tales but in the main consists of lengthy sequences of the central narrative and a large number of poems.
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Single tales, published in one volume (one effect of this is to exclude a large number of shorter evangelical tales and tales for youth proliferating in this period, which form a distinct genre of their own and deserve separate study).
Inevitably, some of the works included in the checklist contain material similar to that detailed above. Judgements have been made regarding the balance of relevant and irrelevant material in each text considered and as such the list cannot be considered in any way exhaustive or beyond revision. The checklist also excludes tales published exclusively in journals or magazines.