H. G. Wells described the purpose of the short story as The jolly art, of making something very bright and moving; it may be horrible or pathetic or funny or profoundly illuminating, having only this essential

1790–1850[edit]

Early examples of short stories were published separately between 1790 and 1810, but the first true collections of short stories appeared between 1810 and 1830 in several countries around the same period.^[15]

The first short stories in the United Kingdom were gothic tales like Richard Cumberland's "remarkable narrative" "The Poisoner of Montremos" (1791).^[16] Novelists such as Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens also wrote short stories.

John Neal aided in developing the genre between the late 1820s and the mid 1830s with tales like "Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" (1829) and "David Whicher," (1832).^[17] Nathaniel Hawthorne published the first part of his Twice-Told Tales in 1837. Edgar Allan Poe wrote his tales of mystery and imagination between 1832 and 1849.^{[citation needed]} Poe took a cosmopolitan approach to writing and his concise technique, deemed the "single effect", has had tremendous influence on the formation of the modern short story.^[2][18] Poe's classic stories are "The Fall of the House of Usher", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Pit and the Pendulum", "The Gold Bug, and the first detective stories, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and "The Purloined Letter".

In Germany, the first collection of short stories was by Heinrich von Kleist in 1810 and 1811. The Brothers Grimm published their first volume of collected fairy tales in 1812. E.T.A. Hoffmann followed with his own original fantasy tales, of which "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (1816) and "The Sandman" are the most famous.

In France, Prosper Mérimée wrote Mateo Falcone in 1829.