Excerpt from The Best American Tales: Chosen, With an Introduction

Story-Telling being as old as the race, there must have been short stories from the beginning of time even if they did not exist in the specialized from to which the name has of late been attached. Witness the ballads out of which the epics of Homer were probably evolved, and such Biblical stories as those of Joseph and Balaam. But ancient stories are usually not short, particularly when Oriental fancy has lingered over and adorned them. Coming later to that remark able collection of tales, "The Arabian Nights," we find much elaboration and many characteristic themes, chiefly of magic and love and intrigue. In Europe the Middle Age took a frank delight in story-telling. The jongleur and the minstrel were familiar and honored figures at court, the tales they told being manifold and long and full of gallant adventure.

Out of this practice, and in striking contrast with it, came, in the fourteenth century in Italy, Boccaccio's delightful advance in the art of telling a tale. He used prose, needed only a few strokes, plunged in, and the tale was over.

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