MODERN SHORT STORIES
PREFACE
For many years high school teachers have wished for books of short stories edited for high school use. They have known that most novels, however interesting, are too long to hold attention, and that too few novels can be read to give proper appreciation of form in narration. The essay, as seen in The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers, and in Irving’s Sketch Book, has been a poor substitute for the short story. High school students have longed for action, for quickness, for life, for climax, for something new and modern. Instead, they have had hundreds of pages, long expositions, descriptions, leisurely treatment, and material drawn from the past. They have read such material because they must, and have turned, for relief, to short stories in the cheaper magazines.
The short story is to-day our most common literary product. It is read by everyone. Not every boy or girl will read novels after leaving school, but every boy or girl is certain to read short stories. It is important in the high school to guide taste and appreciation in short story reading, so that the reading of days when school life is over will be healthful and upbuilding. This important duty has been recognized in all the most recent suggestions for high school reading. The short story is just beginning to take its important place in the high school course. To make use of a book of short stories in high school work is to fall in line with the most modern developments in the teaching of literature in the high school.
Most collections of short stories that have been prepared, for school use, up to the present, are more or less alike in ivdrawing much of their material from the past. Authors and content alike are dead. Here is a collection that is entirely modern. The authors represented are among the leading authors of the day, the stories are principally stories of present-day life, the themes are themes of present-day thought. The students who read this book will be more awake to the present, and will be better citizens of to-day.
The great number of stories presented has given opportunity to illustrate different types of short story writing. What could not be done by the class study of many novels may be accomplished by the study of the different stories in this book. The student will gain a knowledge of types, of ways of construction, of style, that he could not gain otherwise except by long-continued study. Class study of the short story leads inevitably to keen appreciation of artistic effects in fiction.
The introductory material, biographies, explanations, and notes, have been made purely for high school students, in order to help those who may have read comparatively little, so that,—instead of being turned aside forever by a dry-as-dust treatment,—they may wish to proceed further in their study.
It is always pure delight to teach the short story to high school classes, but it is even more delightful when the material is especially fitted for high school work. This book, we hope, will aid both teachers and pupils to come upon many happy hours in the class room.
The editor acknowledges, with thanks, the kindly permissions to use copyright material that have been granted by the various authors and publishers. Complete acknowledgments appear in the table of contents.
CONTENTS
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
via 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
vii
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