EDITORIAL

Abstract

Short Story as a genre of literature is as old as mankind itself. It has developed in form and content from generation to generation, catering to the demands of the hour. Modern Short Story as a distinct form of art came into being in the wake of th industrialization in Europe at the end of 19 century when a newly emerged middle class reader preferred brevity of expression, immediacy of effect and directness of purpose to the elaborate descriptions (often irrelevant), multiplicity of themes and concerns of novels. Modern Short Story according to W. J. Dawson, shuns irrelevant details and descriptions, it excels in its direct appeal to the readers or listeners, avoiding all excrescence that is unnecessary to the theme. It often revolves around one person, one incident or one moment so dramatically that a reader's attention is hooked from beginning to the last. It is short because it cannot be long. Like all great works of art, it is suggestive than prescriptive. It is varied in techniques and styles but hardly compromises with the centrality of aim, its motif. Here is the world inhabited by great souls - a Dickens, a Kipling, a Hardy, a Quiller Couch, a Stevenson, a Washington Irving, a Hawthorne, a Poe, a Tolstoy, a Kafka, a Faulkner, a Manto, a Tagore, a Prem Chand, and many more like them who have reflected on truths of life from their personal experiences, presenting snaps of life in their short stories to enrich man's understanding of life and its affairs with newer experiments in language and technique. Dawson in a very insightful article entitled "The Modern Short Story"