Adventures in Reading

"Good stories are always good, and the passing of time affects them very little. The ancient Greek fables about the fox and the grapes, or about the greedy dog saw his image in the brook, are centuries old, yet they still entertain and have meaning for us in our own time. Fables, in the sense that they have tales to tell, are examples of the very oldest kinds of story. In the earliest days, stories were told in verse. Even after writing had become a part of man's accomplishments, verse was still used for storytelling. The only literature written in prose consisted of histories and biographies. Then, with the invention of the printing press, a great new audience of readers was created. For this new audience, other forms of prose writing -- works that would offer the reader excitement, adventure, and imaginative characters -- needed to be developed. Stories and tales were no longer confined to verse; at last they were presented in prose -- or fiction, as it was called. In this way, the new and rapidly expanding audience of readers brought about the appearance of novels and, ultimately, of short stories."--From the introduction.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.