general form of straightforward narrative, as in Kipling's An Habitation Enforced or Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews' Amici, yet it exhibits many variations in presentation. Sometimes it is a series of letters as in James' A Bundle of Letters, sometimes a group of narrative, letters, and telegrams as in Thomas Bailey Aldrich's Marjorie Daw; again, a letter and a paragraph as in Henry Cuyler Bunner's A Letter and a Paragraph, or a gathering of letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, and advertisements as Bunner and Matthews' Documents in the Case.

Again it may be told in the first person as in Stevenson's Pavilion on the Links, or in the third person as in Kipling's The Bridge Builders. Yet again it may be a conundrum as Stockton's famous The Lady or the Tiger!

But besides the forms due to the manner of presentation there are other forms due to the emphasis placed on one of the three elements of a narrative—-action, character, and setting. Consequently using this principle of classification we have three forms which may be exemplified by Kipling's William the Conqueror, wherein action is emphasized; his Tomb of His Ancestors, wherein character is emphasized; and his An Error in the Fourth Dimension, wherein setting is emphasized.

Using yet another principle of classification—material—we obtain: stories of dramatic interest, that is, of some striking happening that would hold the audience of a play in a highly excited state, as Stevenson's Sire de Malétroit's Door; of love, as Bunner's Love in Old Cloathes; of roman[Pg xvii]tic adventure, as Kipling's Man Who Would Be King; of terror, as Poe's Pit and the Pendulum; of the supernatural, as Crawford's The Upper Berth; of humor, as humor, as Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews' A Good Samaritan; of animals, as Kipling's Rikki-tikki-tavi; of psychological analysis, as James' Madonna of the Future; and so on.

[Pg xvii]

III THE SHORT-STORY AS NARRATION

All the previous discussion must not obscure the fact that the short-story is a form of narration and subject to all that pertains thereto. Now what is narration and what does it imply?

Narration is that form of discourse which presents a series of events in the order of time. Events or action presuppose actors, or characters as they are generally called, and a place where the action may take place; likewise time and circumstances within which the actors act. These three, which may be conveniently spoken of as actors, action, and environment, are three of the 

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