This book is planned for those who wish to write for themselves and to study fiction from the inside. Such a person is interested in the work before him as a process going on in the mind of the author, coming out on the page. He is interested - as a prospective authorin decisions which the author has had to make, in how he has worked things out, in all the problems of literary construction.
For this activity, a Faulkner or Hemingway story will not do. The criticism of their stories is no longer much concerned with evaluation or "process," because they are established as part of the literature of an age. To achieve a more intimate relation with an author 's problems than admiration at humble distance usually allows, all but two of the stories in this collection, which are primarily recent American stories, are not well known. They have not always been chosen for their excellence - though most of them are admirable and none bad-but principally for usefulness to the beginning writer who wishes to learn more about his craft.
