The rise of the British short story coincides with the publication of Jane Austen’s novels and with the emergence of the great Romantic poetry. For a good understanding of the literature of the period, one must consider the astonishingly rich field of the short fiction produced in England, Scotland, and Ireland in the first decades of the 19th century. The Romantic interest in history, folklore, the gothic and the supernatural went hand in hand with the newly discovered potential of realism and local colour in the manner of Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth.