The short novel according to Wilfrid Sheed "is a form which the greatest masters find essential for certain effects." The masters are here in abundance, from Dos- toevsky to Faulkner, Chekhov to Fowles, Mark Twain to Philip Roth. In his perceptive critical in- troduction, Mr. Sheed explains why these stories had to be exactly this length and no longer, and what part they played in their au- thors' careers. Presenting a splen- did group of writers at their best, this volume perfectly illustrates Mr. Sheed's bravura defense of a literary form that offers "such drama as can be taken at one sit- ting—a scale that literature can hardly afford to forfeit."
Andrea - John O'Hara
The Old Maid - Edith Wharton
Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck
Mario and the Magician - Thomas Mann
Pudd'nhead Wilson - Mark Twain
Ward No. 6 - Anton Chekhov
Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Fall - Albert Camus
Old Man - William Faulkner
Youth - Joseph Conrad
The Lesson of the Master - Henry James
My Mortal Enemy - Willa Cather
The Ghost Writer - Philip Roth
The Ebony Tower - John Fowles
Catholics - Brian Moore
The Blacking Factory - Wilfrid Sheed