"The Yellow Wallpaper," oh!--"The Yellow Wallpaper"! I freakin' love that story and all it's feminism and light-toned creepiness.

I do think first-person is more difficult to write. Not as difficult as second, surely, but still harder than third, so I think you might be right about a lot of writers lacking the skill. And I'm glad I'm not the only pretentious lit snob. I try not to be, but I took a lot of lit classes and it just sort of happened. orz