What this anthology is, and how it is examined
A multi-author, multi-culture set selection of short stories — and the single fact that changes how you revise it.
Many writers, one set selection. Unlike a single-author prose text such as Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust, Stories of Ourselves, Volume 1 is an anthology: the 2026 selection gathers fifteen short stories by many different writers, from late-nineteenth-century voices (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells) through mid-century writers (Evelyn Waugh, Bernard Malamud, J. G. Ballard, Maurice Shadbolt, Patrick White, Doris Lessing) to later and contemporary authors (Anita Desai, Morris Lurie, Paule Marshall, Rohinton Mistry, Adam Thorpe, Amit Chaudhuri). There is no single 'design' or 'argument' uniting them — which is exactly why the way you revise an anthology must differ from the way you revise a single text.
The consequence for revision:
- You cannot learn 'the author's worldview' because there are many authors. Instead you learn THEMES that recur across the selection, and the specific stories that carry each theme.
- Because the (a) essay lets you choose which set stories to write about, the single most valuable thing you can build is a theme-grouped bank of stories, narrative methods and securely-known detail.
- The short story is its own form. A compressed, single-effect tale of a child's afternoon (Desai) is doing something quite different from a dystopian fable about an overcrowded world (Ballard) — and recognising what the form is doing is half the analysis.
How Section A works for an anthology set text:
| Feature | What it means for you |
|---|---|
| Two question options per text | (a) a general/discursive essay where YOU choose set stories, often comparing; (b) a passage-based question printing an extract from ONE story to read closely |
| You answer ONE question | 25 marks; spend the time on depth, not coverage |
| Assessment objectives | AO1, AO2, AO3, AO4 — NOT AO5 (that is Papers 3 and 4) |
| The reward | analysis of narrative method + informed personal argument + genuine comparison — never plot retelling |
The (a) essay is usually best answered as a comparison. Even when a question does not say 'compare', the strongest answers on an anthology set two well-matched stories against each other on the named theme. Comparison is where you display the range of the anthology and the precision of your reading at once — so treat it as the core skill of this paper.
- An anthology = many writers/periods/cultures; no single 'argument' to learn — organise by THEME.
- The (a) essay lets YOU pick the stories, so a theme-grouped story-and-method bank is your best revision tool.
- The (b) question prints an extract from ONE story for close reading; stay anchored in it.
- Assessed on AO1-AO4 (not AO5); each question is 25 marks.
- Comparison of two well-matched stories is the central skill — engineer it even when not explicitly asked.