ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the Short Fiction in the early nineteenth century. While most studies of short fiction acknowledge the existence of the genre in the early nineteenth century, they nonetheless view this era as one of relative infertility. The assumption of a relative lack of literary merit is one way in which modern criticism has limited readings of early-nineteenth-century short fiction, but it is not the only way. The chapter discusses the majority of early criticism took Poe's basic premise that short fiction was defined not only by its length, but also by stylistic and structural techniques, and by the ideological qualities of its writing as a starting point. Critics tread far more carefully when making broad-brush connections between Romantic ideologies and the novel, and short fiction deserves an equally nuanced approach. Magazine publishers found that ghost stories, comic tales, and descriptive sketches could be extremely popular, and rival titles were quick to latch onto new trends.
