《英美短篇小说精粹：从司各特至福克纳》选材突出经典，选文全是英美短篇小说大师的作品，有的作品几乎是所有短篇小说集必不可少的选文，特别适合初涉文学的英语专业学生学习。
选文内容丰富，可读性强，既可作为文学教材使用，也可作为语言训练的阅读教材。每篇小说后面都附有阅读思考题，便于教师上课使用或学生自学。另外，《英美短篇小说精粹：从司各特至福克纳》主编还可提供教学课件供广大教师朋友参考。
作家介绍部分尽量涉及作家在短篇小说发展史上的贡献，从理论上强化读者阅读小说时所获得的关于短篇小说发展脉络的感性认识。
《英美短篇小说精粹：从司各特至福克纳》设定的阅读对象为全日制英语专业大学二、三年级学生，英语专业自考生，已经通过大学英语四级考试的非英语专业学生，以及相当程度的其他英语文学爱好者。
短篇小说（the short story）是用散文创作的虚构类叙事作品，通常只限于写单一背景下的一个事件，牵涉到一两个人物的活动，一般认为长度应在l000-20000字，少于l000字的叫做小小说（short short fiction，short shorts或者flash fiction）。多于20 000字的就是中篇小说或者长篇小说了。但有人认为纯粹以字数来分类没有道理，爱伦·坡就提出短篇小说作为一个文类区别于中、长篇小说的应该有其自身的美学特征，他在《创作的哲学》（“The Philosophy of Composition”）一文中指出短篇小说应该具备这样一个特征：要人坐在那里一口气可以读完（One should be able to read it one sitting），要具有一种长篇小说所不可能具备的“印象的统一性”。有人认为短篇小说做到了法国古典戏剧未能真正实行的三一律：表现一天之内一个地方所发生的一个行动，短篇小说处理的是单一人物、单一事件、单一情感，或者由单一情境所引发的一连串情感。
Unit Ⅰ Sir Walter Scott
Ⅰ.Brief Introduction to the Authol
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. Death of the Lairds Jock
2. The Tapestried Chamber
Unit Ⅱ Washington Irving
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Widow and Her Son
2. Rip Van Winkle
Unit Ⅲ Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Ministers Black Veil
2. Young Goodman Brown
Unit Ⅳ Edgar Allan Poe
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Tell-Tale Heart
2. Thou Art the Man
Unit Ⅴ Charles Dickens
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Childs Story
2. The Detective Police
Unit Ⅵ Herman Melville
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Readings
1. The Lightning-Rod Man
2. The Bell-Tower
Unit Ⅶ Mark Twain
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. Running for Governor
2. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Unit Ⅷ Robert Louis Stevenson
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Touchstone
2. The Song of the Morrow
Unit Ⅸ Oscar Wilde
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Sphinx without a Secret
2. The Nightingale and the Rose
Unit Ⅹ Joseph Conrad
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Lagoon
2. II Conde
Unit Ⅺ O. Henry
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen
2. Gift of the Magi
Unit Ⅻ Stephen Crane
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Duel That Was Not Fought
2. The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky
Unit ⅩⅢ Virginia Woolf
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The String Quartet
2. The Mark on the Wall
Unit ⅩⅣ James doyce
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. Araby
2. A Mother
Unit ⅩⅤ Katherine Mansfield
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. The Woman at the Store
2. Mr. and Mrs. Dove
Unit ⅩⅥ William Faulkner
Ⅰ. Brief Introduction to the Author
Ⅱ. Selected Reading
1. A Rose for Emily
2. That Evening Sun
Appendix A Brief History of the Short Story
Poe was a complex person， tormented and alcoholic yet also considerate andhumorous， a good friend， and an affectionate husband. Indeed， his painful life，his neurotic attraction to intense beauty， violent horror， and death， and his senseof the world of dreams contributed to his greatness as a writer. In the practicalaffairs of everyday life， in many of the common amenities， in the domestic circle，and in the general give and take of earthly existence， Poe was greatly lacking andfrequently a complete failure. He could not and did not in any sense of the words"get along" with his fellow men. But he certainly was a charm and fascination， amagnetism and a reverse power of antagonism which caused him to be greatly lovedby a few， hated by many， and memorable to everybody.
As a man Poe wasabnormal， and as a genius unique.Poe was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living throughwriting alone and he was one of the earliest American practitioners of the shortstory and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre.
He alsocontributed to the emerging genre of science-fiction. His skillfully wrought talesand poems convey with passionate intensity the mysterious， dreamlike， and oftenmacabre forces that pervaded his sensibility. His characters are either grotesquesor the inhabitants of another world than this. Being a master hand at writing theshort story， he is especially "clever at dropping foreshadowing hints at what wouldhappen later and keeping the reader in suspense for as long as possible. He likesto use learned words， which makes reading his stories a little difficult for theaverage reader. But the fulfillment of gaining insight into human psychology givesthe reader enough compensation for the hard labour of "cracking the nut" of hislanguage.
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