Edith Wharton
Author
Description
Excerpt: "To treat of the practice of fiction is to deal with the newest, most fluid and least formulated of the arts. The exploration of origins is always fascinating; but the attempt to relate the modern novel to the tale of Joseph and his Brethren is of purely historic interest. Modern fiction really began when the "action" of the novel was transferred from the street to the soul; and this step was probably first taken when Madame de La Fayette,...
Author
Description
Essays on the craft of fiction writing from the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, for her novel The Age of Innocence.
In The Writing of Fiction, Edith Wharton, a prolific writer and one of the twentieth century's greatest authors, shares her thoughts on fiction writing, devoting individual chapters to short stories and novels. She stresses the importance of writers putting thought into how they build their story, from selecting subject matter...
Description
Amor Towles selects the best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Andrew Child, Jeffery Deaver, and T.C. Boyle.
In his introduction to this volume, guest editor Amor Towles pays tribute to the forgotten person of the mystery story—the cadaver. “Male or female, old or young, rich or poor,” he writes, “for over a hundred years the cadaver has been accommodating, gracious, and generally on time. There is no other figure in crime...