The T{\i}fl{\^\i} stories are a corpus of prose fiction produced in the Ottoman Empire from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries and often regarded~as the main precursor of the Ottoman novel. At a time when Ottoman high literature consisted almost exclusively of epic or mystical poetry, the~T{\i}fl{\^\i} stories depicted the mundane adventures of everyday characters in the actual setting of Istanbul. Remarkably, they introduced techniques of~literary realism into Ottoman fiction independently of similar techniques being developed in Western literature.~
T{\i}fl{\^\i} Hik{\^a}yeleri~serves two purposes: firstly, it offers a close literary analysis of the stories, establishing the textual evidence that enables us to view~them as a genre. Secondly, through a careful application of historical process tracing, it maps each story onto its historical context,~demonstrating how changes in the genre go hand in hand with the transformation of Ottoman society from the eighteenth to the twentieth~centuries.~
Containing scholarly analysis as well as transliterations of the stories themselves, T{\i}fl{\^\i} Hik{\^a}yeleri is the first book-length academic study on the~genre, and the first work to enable easy access to the primary texts for contemporary audiences and scholars alike.