SOURCE: Harris, Wendell V. “English Short Fiction in the 19th Century.” Studies in Short Fiction 6, no. 1 (fall 1968): 22‐45.

In the following excerpt, Harris catalogues the prominent short story writers of the period 1830 to 1880, summarizing their representative works, and concludes with an overview of English and Irish Aesthetic fiction of the late nineteenth century.

I must confess to having suffered considerable uneasiness in contemplating how to approach the great body of short fiction written during the years from 1830 to 1880; the resulting decision was to abandon all pretense of completeness and simply present a representative selection of significant writers.

The first is William Maginn, who, as one of the earliest contributors, helped set the tone of Blackwood's fiction and as one of the founders of Fraser's Magazine established policies that helped increase the popularity and importance of short fiction in England. The whole of Maginn's contributions to periodicals has yet to...