CONTENTS
| | PAGE |
| Preface | [iii] |
| Introduction | |
| I | Our National Reading | [vii] |
| II | The Definition | [vii] |
| III | The Family Tree of the Short Story | [ix] |
| IV | A Good Story | [xi] |
| V | What Shall I Do with This Book? | [xiii] |
| VI | Where to Find Some Good Short Stories | [xv] |
| VII | Some Interesting Short Stories | [xvi] |
| VIII | What to Read about the Short Story | [xix] |
| The Adventures of Simon and Susanna — Joel Chandler Harris From “Daddy Jake and the Runaways.” | [3] |
| The Crow-Child — Mary Mapes Dodge From “The Land of Pluck.” | [9] |
| The Soul of the Great Bell — Lafcadio Hearn From “Some Chinese Ghosts.” | [17] |
| The Ten Trails — Ernest Thompson Seton From “Woodmyth and Fable.” | [22] |
| Where Love is, There God is Also — Count Leo Tolstoi From “Tales and Parables.” | [23] |
| Wood-Ladies — Perceval Gibbon From “Scribner’s Magazine.” | [38] |
| On the Fever Ship — Richard Harding Davis From “The Lion and the Unicorn.” | [53] |
| A Source of Irritation — Stacy Aumonier From “The Century Magazine.” | [69] |
| Moti Guj—Mutineer — Rudyard Kipling From “Plain Tales from the Hills.” | [84] |
| Gulliver the Great — Walter A. Dyer From “Gulliver the Great and Other Stories.” | [92] |
| Sonny’s Schoolin’ — Ruth McEnery Stuart From “Sonny, a Christmas Guest.” | [105] |
| Her First Horse Show — David Gray From “Gallops 2.” | [117] |
| My Husband’s Book — James Matthew Barrie From “Two of Them.” | [135] |
| War — Jack London From “The Night-Born.” | [141] |
| The Battle of the Monsters — Morgan Robertson From “Where Angels Fear to Tread.” | [147] |
| A Dilemma — S. Weir Mitchell From “Little Stories.” | [160] |
| The Red-Headed League — A. Conan Doyle From “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.” | [166] |
| One Hundred in the Dark — Owen Johnson From “Murder in Any Degree.” | [192] |
| A Retrieved Reformation — O. Henry From “Roads of Destiny.” | [212] |
| Brother Leo — Phyllis Bottome From “The Derelict and Other Stories.” | [221] |
| A Fight with Death — Ian Maclaren From “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush.” | [238] |
| The Dàn-nan-Ròn — Fiona Macleod From “The Dominion of Dreams, Under the Dark Star.” | [248] |
| Notes and Comments | [275] |
| Suggestive Questions for Class Use | [296] |
INTRODUCTION
I
OUR NATIONAL READING
Is there anyone who has not read a short story? Is there anyone who has not stopped at a news-stand to buy a short-story magazine? Is there anyone who has not drawn a volume of short stories from the library, or bought one at the book-store? Short stories are everywhere. There are bed-time stories and fairy stories for little children; athletic stories, adventure stories, and cheerful good-time stories for boys and girls; humorous stories for those who like to laugh, and serious stories for those who like to think. The World and his Wife still say, “Tell me a story,” just as they did a thousand years ago. Our printing presses have fairly roared an answer, and, at this moment, are busy printing short stories. Even the newspapers, hardly able to find room for news and for advertisements, often give space to re-printing short stories. Our people are so fond of soda water that some one has laughingly called it our national drink. Our people of every class, young and old, are so fond of short stories that, with an equal degree of truth, we may call the short story our national reading.
II
THE DEFINITION
The short story and the railroad are about equally old,—or, rather, equally new, for both were perfected in distinctly recent times. The railroad is the modern development of older ways of moving people and goods from one place to another,—of litters, carts, and wagons. The short story is the modern development of older ways of telling what actually had happened, or might happen, or what might be imagined to happen,—of tales, fables, anecdotes, and character studies. A great number of men led the way to the locomotive, but it remained for the nineteenth century, in the person of George Stephenson, to perfect it. In like manner, many authors led the way to the short story of to-day, but it remained for the nineteenth century, and particularly for Edgar Allan Poe, to perfect it, and give it definition.