Chapter I: Preface

The object of this volume is not to collect the best American short stories. So delicate a choice may the more readily be left to time, since it must include some authors now living. That dramatic concentration which is the habit of a hundred writers for our magazines to-day was extremely rare before 1835; it was not common before 1870; it has become habitual within the memory of its younger practitioners. This collection, then, seeks to exhibit, and the introductory essay seeks to follow and formulate, a development. The development from inchoate tales into that distinct and self-consistent form which, for lack of a distinctive term, we have tacitly agreed to call the short story is a chapter of American literary history.

Influences from abroad and from the past, though they could not be displayed at large, have been indicated in the aspects that seemed most suggestive for research. The significance in form of Boccaccio’s experiments, for example, because it has hardly been defined before, is proposed in outline to students of comparative literature. But the American development is so far independent that it may be fairly comprehended in one volume. To exhibit this by typical instances, from Irving down, did not preclude variety alike of talents and of scenes. Indeed, that the collection should thus express many tempers--Knickerbocker leisure, Yankee adaptability, Irish fervor; and many localities, from elder New England to the new coast of gold, from the rude Michigan frontier to the gentle colonies of the lower Mississippi--makes it the more American.

It is a pleasure to record my obligation to Walter Austin, Esq., for the rare edition of his grandfather’s literary papers, and to the publishers whose courtesy permits me to include some stories valuable in copyright as in art.

C. S. B.

[NOTE.--The story entitled ‘The Eve of the Fourth’ is printed here
(page 305) by permission of Mr. William Heinemann, publisher of
‘The Copperhead, and Other Stories, etc.,’ by Harold Frederic.]

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Page

I. The Tale in America before 1835 1

II. Poe’s Invention of the Short Story 15

III. A Glance at Derivation: Ancient Tales, Mediæval Tales,
The Modern French Short Story 23

PART I. THE TENTATIVE PERIOD

Chapter

I. WASHINGTON IRVING

_Rip Van Winkle_ _1820_ 39

II. WILLIAM AUSTIN

_Peter Rugg, the Missing Man_ _1824_ 61

III. JAMES HALL

_The French Village_ _1829_ 99

IV. ALBERT PIKE

_The Inroad of the Nabajo_ _1833_ 115