Short Stories & Criticism

The Reference Collection includes guides to short story criticism. Here are a few:

• Short Fiction Criticism: A Checklist of Interpretation Since 1925 of Stories and Novelettes (American, British, Continental) 1800-1958 (ref PN 3373 T58)
• Twentieth-Century Short Story Explication (ref PN 3373 W3 1977 & suppl.)
• Twentieth-Century European Short Story: An Annotated Bibliography (ref PN 3335 M39 1989)

For books of short story criticism, use the HSU Library Catalog. Keyword searching is usually best. You can search for general criticism, criticism of individual authors, or individual stories. When you start with keyword searching, remember to check the Subject(s) in the records you find for other terms or forms of the words you've used. Using these will often find more items than your keyword search did.

Books about an author often include analysis of major works. To find books in our general collection, try a keyword search in the HSU Library Catalog, using the author's name and the words criticism and interpretation, for example:

"katherine anne porter" criticism interpretation

If this fails, try, for example:

"sherman alexie" criticism

Though specific search protocols may vary, these techniques will find books in the catalogs of other libraries, too. You can request such books on interlibrary loan, if our library doesn't have what you need.