When
Beyond the Pale and Other Storieswas published in 1981, William Trevor was already well recognized both as a novelist and as a short story writer. He once said in an interview: “I’m a short-story writer, really, who happens to write novels.” (Stout 143), and it is above all the short story genre that over the years has given him the reputation of being among the very best. In
William Trevor: A Study of His FictionSchirmer
claims that “Trevor’s work in this genre can hardly be overestimated” (7), and Ormsby-Lennon and Boerner argue in
Fools of Fiction: Reading William Trevor’s Storiesthat his “true achievement is as a writer of short stories and of novellas” (Loc 80). Trevor wrote in a long tradition, with predecessors such as James Joyce, Frank O’Connor,…
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Citation: Berg, Mari-Ann. "Beyond the Pale". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 November 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10334, accessed 20 April 2024.]
