SOURCE: Buffington, Robert. “Tolerating the Short Story.” Sewanee Review 102, no. 4 (fall 1994): 682-88.

In the following essay, Buffington discusses various short fiction collections in terms of the principles of the short story form and comments that the three stories in Platte River should be categorized as long stories rather than as novellas.

I may as well say at once that I am no cousin of Mr. Poe.

Were we bidden to say how the highest genius could be most advantageously employed, … we should answer, without hesitation—in the composition of a rhymed poem, not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour. … In almost all classes of composition, the unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. … This unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting. …

Were we called upon, however, to designate that class...