Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle
The New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) was one of the pioneers of the modernist short story in English, taking her cue from Russian writers like Anton Chekhov. Below we’ve given a brief beginner’s guide to five of Mansfield’s very best short stories, with links to where each of them can be read online.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ was the short story that transformed the fortunes of Sherlock Holmes, or at least those of his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Although the great sleuth had previously appeared in two short novels, A Study in Scarlet (1887; it was originally published by Mrs Beeton’s husband, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual) and The Sign of the Four (1890), it would be the short stories, published in The Strand magazine from 1891, that would transform Sherlock Holmes into one of the most recognisable fictional characters in all fiction.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Compiling a list of the best Edgar Allan Poe short stories is always going to prove controversial, because he wrote many more classics than a ‘top 10’ list could ever dream of comprehensively capturing.
So the following does involve some omissions – ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, and several other well-known tales – because our list is designed to showcase the sheer variety of Poe’s stories, and the various genres which he helped to develop (Gothic horror, ghost story, science fiction, detective story).
An introduction to the history of the detective story Since this is a short history of the detective story, it will, inevitably, make some pretty glaring omissions. We’d love to hear from detective fiction aficionados in the comments section below, for any other interesting takes on mystery and detective tales. The first detective story is … Read more