In chapter 3, we surveyed the short story market in late Victorian England and found, as expected, that Stevenson, Hardy, Conrad – indeed most authors of the period –encountered resistance from Mudie's, magazine editors and book publishers whenever they tried to push the boundaries of Victorian taste and prudery. The gradual chipping away of Victorian standards led to some easing of restrictions, but the late Victorian forces that these authors faced did not disappear with a new generation of writers. Indeed, very little changed, especially in the magazine markets, even after World War I, and, if the examples below are at all typical, they endured until World War II and after. As the difficulties these and other late Victorian writers experienced with the magazine market have been well documented, we will not pursue them here. Rather, this chapter will focus on how the residual prejudices and restrictions of late Victorianism persisted even after the short story had blossomed in the 1890s and become a staple of many magazines after the turn of the century.

Barry Pain, an enormously popular author who in his day was also regarded as more than a bestseller, reminds us above that the business of publishing short stories was not made easy simply because there were a great many magazines in England and America willing to publish them. Fledgeling writers, of course, had to prove themselves to agents and editors, but even the famous and widely published often encountered resistance and even rejection. Indeed, there is hardly an author mentioned in this study who was not rejected even at the height of his or her career, and when not rejected, authors found themselves hemmed in by a myriad of restrictions and expectations, many of which seem ludicrous today.