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How did the rise of the novel affect short fiction in the 17th and 18th centuries?

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Analyze short fiction elements evidenced in “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Necklace,” and “The Magic Shop” — short story American editor and anthologist Clifton Fadiman discusses the elements of a short story, 1980. The video features clips from Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation's dramatizations of O. Henry's “The Gift of the Magi,” Guy de Maupassant's “The Necklace,” and H.G. Wells's “The Magic Shop.”

The 17th and 18th centuries witnessed a temporary decline in short fiction in the West, a shift largely driven by the emergence and rising popularity of the novel.1

As the novel gained prominence, it began to overshadow shorter narrative forms. During this period, the market was increasingly dominated by non-fictional prose, including travel books, criminal biographies, social descriptions, sermons, and essays. This shift was fueled by a growing public interest in social conditions and factual reporting, which favored descriptive and biographical sketches over traditional, often escapist, short stories.1

Furthermore, the short story form struggled to evolve beyond the well-worn Boccaccio tradition, which had relied on variations of older material for centuries. While the Renaissance and Enlightenment sparked a new, serious interest in secular issues and actual conditions, short fiction failed to adapt to these demands, leading to its relative disappearance. It was not until the 19th century that the form shed its escapist trappings to reemerge with the new vitality and seriousness characteristic of the "modern short story".1