Fifty Famous Stories Retold

Fifty Famous Stories Retold

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifty Famous Stories Retold, by
James Baldwin This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Fifty Famous Stories Retold
Author: James Baldwin
Release Date: May 23, 2006 [EBook #18442]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY
FAMOUS STORIES RETOLD ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

FIFTY FAMOUS STORIES RETOLD
BY
JAMES BALDWIN

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO

COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY.

CONTENTS.
King Alfred and the Cakes
King Alfred and the Beggar
King Canute on the Seashore
The Sons of William the Conqueror
The White Ship
King John and the Abbot
A Story of Robin Hood
Bruce and the Spider
The Black Douglas
Three Men of Gotham
Other Wise Men of Gotham
The Miller of the Dee
Sir Philip Sidney

The Ungrateful Soldier
Sir Humphrey Gilbert
Sir Walter Raleigh
Pocahontas
George Washington and his Hatchet
Grace Darling
The Story of William Tell
Arnold Winkelried
The Bell of Atri
How Napoleon crossed the Alps
The Story of Cincinnatus
The Story of Regulus
Cornelia's Jewels
Androclus and the Lion
Horatius at the Bridge
Julius Cæsar
The Sword of Damocles
Damon and Pythias
A Laconic Answer
The Ungrateful Guest

Alexander and Bucephalus
Diogenes the Wise Man
The Brave Three Hundred
Socrates and his House
The King and his Hawk
Doctor Goldsmith
The Kingdoms
The Barmecide Feast
The Endless Tale
The Blind Men and the Elephant
Maximilian and the Goose Boy
The Inchcape Rock
Whittington and his Cat
Casabianca
Antonio Canova
Picciola
Mignon

CONCERNING THESE STORIES.
There are numerous time-honored stories which have become so
incorporated into the literature and thought of our race that a

knowledge of them is an indispensable part of one's education. These
stories are of several different classes. To one class belong the popular
fairy tales which have delighted untold generations of children, and
will continue to delight them to the end of time. To another class
belong the limited number of fables that have come down to us through
many channels from hoar antiquity. To a third belong the charming
stories of olden times that are derived from the literatures of ancient
peoples, such as the Greeks and the Hebrews. A fourth class includes
the half-legendary tales of a distinctly later origin, which have for their
subjects certain romantic episodes in the lives of well-known heroes
and famous men, or in the history of a people.
It is to this last class that most of the fifty stories contained in the
present volume belong. As a matter of course, some of these stories are
better known, and therefore more famous, than others. Some have a
slight historical value; some are useful as giving point to certain great
moral truths; others are products solely of the fancy, and are intended
only to amuse. Some are derived from very ancient sources, and are
current in the literature of many lands; some have come to us through
the ballads and folk tales of the English people; a few are of quite
recent origin; nearly all are the subjects of frequent allusions in poetry
and prose and in the conversation of educated people. Care has been
taken to exclude everything that is not strictly within the limits of
probability; hence there is here no trespassing upon the domain of the
fairy tale, the fable, or the myth.
That children naturally take a deep interest in such stories, no person
can deny; that the reading of them will not only give pleasure, but will
help to lay the foundation for broader literary studies, can scarcely be
doubted. It is believed, therefore, that the present collection will be
found to possess an educative value which will commend it as a
supplementary reader in the middle primary grades at school. It is also
hoped that the book will prove so attractive that it will be in demand
out of school as well as in.
Acknowledgments are due to Mrs. Charles A. Lane, by whom eight or
ten of the stories were suggested.

FIFTY FAMOUS STORIES RETOLD.
KING ALFRED AND THE CAKES.
[Illustration:]
Many years ago there lived in Eng-land a wise and good king whose
name was Al-fred. No other man ever did so much for his country as he;
and people now, all over the world, speak of him as Alfred the Great.
In those days a king did not have a very easy life. There was war
almost all the time, and no one else could