In 1895, Sherwin Cody published anonymously in London the first technical treatise on the rhetoric of the short-story, “The Art of Story Writing.”
In 1896, Professor E. H. Lewis instituted in Chicago University the first course of instruction in the art of story-writing.
In 1898, Charles Raymond Barrett published the first large work on Short Story Writing, with a complete analysis of Hawthorne’s “The Ambitious Guest,” and many important suggestions for writers.
In the same year Charity Dye first applied pedagogical principles to the study of the short story, in The Story-Teller’s Art.
In 1902, Professor Lewis W. Smith published a brochure, The Writing of the Short Story, in which psychological principles were for the first time applied to the study and the writing of the short-story.
In 1902, Professor H. S. Canby issued The Short Story, in which the theory of impressionism was for the first time developed. In 1903, this essay was included in The Book of the Short Story, Alexander Jessup collaborating, together with specimens of stories from the earliest times and lists of tales and short-stories arranged by periods.
In 1904, Professor Charles S. Baldwin developed a criticism of American Short Stories which has been largely followed by later writers.
In 1909, Professor H. S. Canby produced The Short Story in English, the first voluminous historical and critical study of the origins, forms, and content of the short-story.
I have dwelt upon the history of the short-story thus in outline because we often meet the inquiry—sometimes put ignorantly, sometimes skeptically—What is a short-story? Is it anything more than a story that is short?