Stories

Most Widely-Known today as the author of The Morgesons (1862), her first of three novels, Elizabeth Stoddard was also a prolific writer of short stories, children's tales, poems, essays, travel writing, and journalism pieces. This anthology now makes available for the first time selections from Stoddard's too-long neglected literary production of short fiction. Originally published between 1859 and the 1890s in such magazines as Harper's Monthly, Harper's Bazaar, and the Atlantic Monthly, the sixteen stories included here demonstrate the versatility of a fascinating writer who was one of the most original and unique voices in nineteenth-century American literature. A pioneering predecessor of regionalist authors Mary Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Kate Chopin, as well as a precursor of American modernism, Stoddard's writing is remarkable for its almost total lack of sentimentality, pervasive use of irony, psychological depth of richly drawn characters, intense atmospheric descriptions ofNew England, concise language, and innovative use of narrative voice and structure. Her investigation of relations between the sexes, a dominant focus of her fiction, analyzes emotions ranging from love and desire to disdain, aggression, and depression. Grouped by thematic sections that represent the full scope of Stoddard's work in terms of tone, topic, and style, these complex and entertaining stories have lost none of their immediacy and freshness. This invaluable collection will reintroduce an overlooked yet major woman writer to a new generation of readers.