short story

Introduction
Analysis of the genre
History
- Origins
  - From Egypt to India
  - The Greeks
- Middle Ages, Renaissance, and after
  - Proliferation of forms
  - Refinement
  - Spreading popularity
- Decline of short fiction
- Emergence of the modern short story
  - The 19th century
  - The “impressionist” story
  - Respect for the story
  - French writers
  - Russian writers
The 20th century

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images & Videos

Analyze short fiction elements evidenced in “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Necklace,” and “The Magic Shop”

Learn about Ernest Hemingway's short story “My Old Man” and his time as an expatriate in Paris

Follow a dramatization of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic American short story “Dr. Heidegger's Experiment”

Learn why Herman Melville's enigmatic hero in the short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” prefers not

Explore Herman Melville's classic American short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” with Charles Van Doren

See Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story “The Crocodile” brought to life

Examine how to direct a film adaption of Walter van Tilburg Clark's short story “The Portable Phonograph”

Know about Katherine Mansfield, her writing technique, influences, and contribution to literary modernism

At a Glance

short story summary

Quizzes

Row of colorful books on a bookshelf. Stack of books, pile of books, literature, reading. Homepage 2010, arts and entertainment, history and society

The Literary World

Nobel prize-winning American author, Pearl S. Buck, at her home, Green Hills Farm, near Perkasie, Pennsylvania, 1962. (Pearl Buck)

Novels and Novelists Quiz

Related Questions

How can a short story feel complete despite its brief length?
How did 20th-century short story writers shift from dramatic events to psychological conflict?
How did Aesop’s fables shape the tradition of short fiction?
How did Anton Chekhov reveal character when little physical action occurs in his stories?
How did Italian writers develop short narratives after Boccaccio?
How did Ivan Turgenev emphasize observation rather than elaborate plots in A Sportsman’s Sketches?
How did J.D. Salinger and Raymond Carver influence the American short story after World War II?
How did Nathaniel Hawthorne combine historical details with symbolism in his short stories?
How did Prosper Mérimée’s stories influence the status of the short story in France?
How did Scheherazade use storytelling to delay her execution in The Thousand and One Nights?
How did The Thousand and One Nights use a frame story?
How did Yūsuf Idrīs portray poverty and political oppression in Egyptian short stories?
How did Zakariyyā Tāmir use symbolic and nightmarish scenes to criticize authority?
How did fixed phrases and rhyme help early storytellers remember narratives?
How did frame stories allow medieval storytellers to combine several separate tales?
How did journalistic sketches contribute to the development of the modern short story?
How did literary journals help new short-story writers reach readers in the 20th century?
How did medieval romances draw on the Matter of Britain, France, and Rome?
How did myths, fables, legends, and fairy tales contribute to the modern short story?
How did the modern short story emerge in Germany, France, Russia, and the United States during the 19th century?
How did the rise of the novel affect short fiction in the 17th and 18th centuries?
How did the short story become a form for exploring private lives in American literature?
How did writers such as Poe, Hawthorne, Gogol, Kleist, Hoffmann, and Mérimée combine features of tales and sketches?
How do Edgar Allan Poe’s stories use a narrator’s distorted perceptions?
How do dreams shape Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle?
How do short stories create a single effect for readers?
How does Ernest Hemingway’s A Clean, Well-Lighted Place use psychological conflict rather than action?
How does Maupassant use irony in The Necklace?
How does a literary sketch differ from a traditional tale?
How does a short story differ from a novel?
How does a short story reveal character through action and dramatic encounters?
How were exempla used in medieval sermons?
Why are tales often closely connected to the values of a particular culture?
Why did Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron become so influential in Europe?
Why do short stories often use only one or a few important scenes?
Why do short stories usually avoid complex plots?
Why do short stories usually focus on only a few characters?
Why is Guy de Maupassant known as a master of the objective short story?
How did The Outsiders contribute to young adult (YA) literature?
Why is the novel Onyx Storm significant?
How does poetry differ from prose?
Do adults read children’s literature?
What is a novel?
What is the difference between a novel and a book?
What is the difference between a novel and fiction?

Literature Novels & Short Stories

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External Websites

Yale New Haven Teachers Institute - Elements of the Short Story
Humanities LibreTexts - Short Stories
Ipwa Universitiy Libraries - The Short Story: A Singular Effort
Texas A and M University System Open Digital Publishing - Surface and Subtext: Literature, Research, Writing - Key Components of Short Stories
Pressbook - Composition and Literature - What is a Short Story?

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Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

short story - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

short story

literature

Written by

Arlen J. Hansen

Professor of English, University of the Pacific, Stockton, California, 1974–93.

Arlen J. Hansen

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 3, 2026 •History

short story, brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and that usually deals with only a few characters. The short story is usually concerned with a single effect conveyed in only one or a few significant episodes or scenes. The form encourages economy of setting, concise narrative, and the omission of a complex plot; character is disclosed in action and dramatic encounter but is seldom fully developed. Despite its relatively limited scope,...

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