Excerpt from The American Short Story: A Study of the Influence of Locality in Its Development Opportunity of the short story, which, as a literary type, with its characteristic emphasis upon situa tion, is thus far the distinctive contribution of America to literature. Perhaps, after the host of short-story tellers have searched out the secret of every hamlet and byway, there may come those who, on a larger canvas may attempt weightier things successfully. Perhaps so; but they will certainly not neglect the harvest of their predecessors; and it must be emphasized that we no longer consider the short story as a primary school to the novel, or its writer as a novelist in knickerbockers. The short story has a being and an end in itself, and its independent future is safe. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.