Modern Short Stories: The Uses of Imagination

by Arthur Mizener

In any reasonably definable sense, the short story has existed as a literary form for less than a hundred years, and the significant differences among short stories are not historical differences but differences in mode, in the attitudes toward life which govern an author's sense of reality and the techniques of expression these attitudes dictate. The best way to arrange a volume of short stories is by types or kinds rather than in a chronological pattern intended to indicate some not very significant historical development. The stories in each group require essentially the same kind of reading, and in the introductory essay for each group I have tried to suggest the kind of reading the stories require and why they do so.

Genres: Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Arthur Moore Mizener was an American professor of English, literary critic, and biographer. After graduating from Princeton, Mizener obtained his master's degree from Harvard. From 1951 until his retirement in 1975, he was Mellon Foundation Professor of English at Cornell University. In 1951, Mizener published the first biography of Jazz Age writer F. Scott Fitzgerald titled The Far Side of Paradise.
In addition to authoring the first biography of Fitzgerald, Mizener proposed the now popular interpretations of Fitzgerald's magnum opus The Great Gatsby as a criticism of the American Dream and the character of Jay Gatsby as the dream's false prophet. He popularized these interpretations in a series of talks titled "The Great Gatsby and the American Dream."
Although Mizener's biography became a commercial success, Fitzgerald's friends such as critic Edmund Wilson believed the work distorted Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's relationship and personalities for the worse. Consequently, scholars deemed Andrew Turnbull's 1962 biography Scott Fitzgerald to be a significant correction of the biographical record.
In 1971, Mizener released a biography about writer Ford Madox Ford titled The Saddest Story: A Biography of Ford Madox Ford that received critical acclaim but did not achieve the same commercial success. He later wrote a supplemental Fitzgerald biography titled Scott Fitzgerald And His World.

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the 1962 version of this title, which I found on sale for $1 in the basement of the Kzoo Public Library. It contains several classics that I never tire of reading: "Heart of Darkness," "Defender of the Faith" and "The Odor of Chrysanthemums." Also stories by Faulkner, Updike, Hemingway ... a very enjoyable collection except for the Henry James stories - I don't know why, but I can't read his writing. My favorite story here was "The Gardener" by Kipling - new to me and deliciously sad & surprising.

[Monica Madaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I particularly liked Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royale", which I'd read before. I remembered how 'powerful' it was, but not much more of the particulars. I also really liked Rudyard Kipling's "The Gardener." Reluctant as I am to endorse the fellow who viewed the rest of the universe as "The White Man's Burden," this is a good story. I didn't even know that he'd lived to see the first World War.

[Natalie Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book fell into my lap and if FILLED with so many great authors. Published in the early 60's, it is indeed one of the best collections I own. Conrad, Dylan Thomas, O'Connor, Updike, Fitzgerald, Thurber, Welty, Wharton, Roth, Lawrence, Mansfield, Nabokaov, Kipling, and on and on...

[Drew]

Modern short stories; the uses of imagination by Arthur Mizener (1967), Rev. ed