In the foreword to his anthology Skeleton Crew, Stephen King launched a memorable defence of the horror short story. No, they weren’t failed novels. Neither were they ideas he couldn’t bring himself to bin. Comparing a novel to a long affair, he saw the short story as a “quick kiss in the dark with a stranger … but those kisses can be sweet”.
He is right, of course. Some of literature’s most enduring nightmares are short-form. MR James never wrote a novel. Neither did HP Lovecraft. I would argue that their enduring appeal is also ingrained in our childhood: they’re the bedtime story, the vicious Grimms’ fairytale, the ghost story shared around a crackling campfire.
