Trollope, Anthony - Brander Matthews (essay date 1901)
Brander Matthews (essay date 1901)
SOURCE: The Philosophy of the Short-story, Peter Smith, 1931, pp. 22-6.
[In the following excerpt from a work that was initially published in 1901, Matthews negatively appraises Trollope's ability as a short story writer, arguing that the author's talents are better suited to novel writing.]
[Other] things are required of a writer of Short-stories which are not required of a writer of Novels. The novelist may take his time; he has abundant room to turn about. The writer of Short-stories must be concise, and compression, a vigorous compression, is essential. For him, more than for any one else, the half is more than the whole. Again, the novelist may be commonplace, he may bend his best energies to the photographic reproduction of the actual; if he show us a cross-section of real life we are content; but the writer of Short-stories must have originality and ingenuity. If to compression, originality, and...
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