The Great English Short-Story Writers, Volume I

by William J. Dawson (editor), Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving

I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE SHORT-STORY
II. THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL. By Daniel Defoe (1661-1731)
III. THE MYSTERIOUS BRIDE. By James Hogg (1770-1835)
IV. THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER. By Washington Irving (1783-1859)
V. DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT. By Nathaniel Hawthorne (1807-1864)
VI. THE PURLOINED LETTER. By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
VII. RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. By Dr. John Brown (1810-1882)
VIII. THE BOOTS AT THE HOLLY-TREE INN. By Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
IX. A STORY OF SEVEN DEVILS. By Frank R. Stockton. (1834-1902)
X. A DOG'S TALE. By Mark Twain (1835)
XI. THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT. By Bret Harte (1839-1902)
XII. THE THREE STRANGERS. By Thomas Hardy (1840)
XIII. JULIA BRIDE. By Henry James (1843)
XIV. A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT. By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Genres: Short Stories, Classics, Fiction, Ebooks

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1910

Reviews

[Joseph Chambers · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's clear the academics or publishers or schoolchildren who compiled these stories thought them exemplary of both the quality and history of the English-language short story. If that's true, I'll stick to novels. There were some good stories in here. But sadly, no great ones. And the bad ones (James, Defoe, and *especially* Stockton) are truly abysmal. Thank God the intervening time has brought Bradbury, Salinger, O'Connor, and Oates to deliver us somewhere far away from this volume's contents. I give this a second star to show my gratitude for the introductory essay, an ambitious and sometimes-moving account of the development of the form. The restraints on this book had nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with the state of history, anthropology, and taste in the era of its compilation.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection to see the evolution of the short story. The most interesting part is the introduction, which delves into how the short story came to be how it's evolved over the century. The introduction helps see the charm of the earlier stories, which seem a type of "prototype." They're imbalanced and far from perfect, but necessary for the genre to grow. I particularly liked James Hogg's The Mysterious Bride, choppy in places but wholly entertaining.

Other notables are Hawthorne (who I have a longstanding bias for), Twain, and Harte. Most others are too long-winded, or hard to follow. I genuinely disliked only one, which I couldn't even finish. Sorry, Henry James.

[Piet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Rab best.
James’s story suffered from his wellknown love of intricate sentences and lack of progress and plot. Dickens’s story was a bit sentimental as usual. Defoe’s ghost story was disappointing but I liked the Mysteriouss Bride.
Doctor Heidegger’s experiment contained some humour and so did the story of the seven devils.
Poe’s story was clever but a bit prolonged.
Tom Walker combined realism and fantasy and was a nice read.

[Terry Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some very good stories in this volume. Two stand out: Rab and his Friends by Dr. John Brown and A Dog’s Tale by Mark Twain. I really enjoyed those two stories. Julia Bride by Henry James is a slog. James is so wordy. He can get so many ideas into one sentence that it is hard to follow. Altogether, though, I really had a good time with these stories.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bit of a mix, some good, some mediocre - or perhaps just too distant, mostly being written in the 1700s to 1800s -- and one frankly awful. That one story I didn't like and pretty much just skimmed was Henry James' 'Julia Bride' which I found terribly irritating -- one sentence telling you what happened and then 10 pages of Julia talking to herself in her head -- I think I can sort of see what James is trying to do, but I think Virginia Woolf does it better.

The first three stories are sort of like good old ghost stories, but I think modern readers have grown too used to more sophisticated story telling techniques for these old tales to be very impactful any more. I liked however Hawthorne's 'Dr Heidegger's Experiment' which was a clever play on that ageless desire for eternal youth. Poe's 'Purloined Letter' is very clever, a little like a Sherlock Holmes tale except the detective also plays trickster and is the narrator himself, with the friend serving as foil, which changes the perspective somewhat. Twain's story was great, twisted and satirical as expected, I also liked Bret Harte's, and Thomas Hardy's. Dicken's was kinda likable but a bit strange/naive. Stevenson's is interesting, set up more as a way to frame a somewhat philosophical conversation between a knight and a thief, rather than for dramatic action.

[Lora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it's a colelction of short stories. That means some are better, some aren't, and one I never finished.

[Senad Subasic · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of gems (Poe, Twain, Stockton), but in general a bit too out of date for my taste.