The short novel according to Wilfrid Sheed "is a form which the greatest masters find essential for certain effects." The masters are here in abundance, from Dos- toevsky to Faulkner, Chekhov to Fowles, Mark Twain to Philip Roth. In his perceptive critical in- troduction, Mr. Sheed explains why these stories had to be exactly this length and no longer, and what part they played in their au- thors' careers. Presenting a splen- did group of writers at their best, this volume perfectly illustrates Mr. Sheed's bravura defense of a literary form that offers "such drama as can be taken at one sit- ting—a scale that literature can hardly afford to forfeit."