The Art of Revision in the Short Stories of V.S. Pritchett and William Trevor Trevo

'Dr. Bloom has done a great service for our understanding not only of V. S. Pritchett and William Trevor, but of the way short stories work, and the ways in which their authors polish, recast and revise them. He understands to perfection the subtle means by which the best short stories blend the art of narrative with the art of poetry, each, as it were, drawing just the right attention to the other. His own concluding chapter - 'English Fantasy and Irish Entrapment', is itself a masterpiece of afterthought and sympathetic analysis.' - John Bayley, Oxford University

'Here is a serious, scrupulous and fascinating piece of scholarship that examines the working methods of two modern masters of the short story, V. S. Pritchett and William Trevor, using their drafts, revisions and correspondence with editors to take you to the heart of the imaginative process.' - Claire Tomalin, Whitbread Prize winner for Biography

'Jonathan Bloom has written a valuable appreciation of two of the world's very finest short story writers, an insightful close reading focusing purely and respectfully on the stories themselves.' - Jhumpa Lahiri, Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction

'By invoking a range of complementary approaches-critical, textual, and occasionally biographical - and combining general assessments with detailed examinations of particular works, Jonathan Bloom succeeds not only in celebrating the work of Pritchett and Trevor themselves but also in reinforcingthe status of the short story as a major literary genre.' - Michael Millgate, University of Toronto