The Best American Humorous Short Stories | Page 4

the varieties of style--suited for
all purposes, but for the purposes to which it is adapted it may well be
called supreme.
Then as a poet his work is almost or quite as excellent in a somewhat
more restricted range. In verse he is probably the best artist in
American letters. Here his sole pursuit was beauty, both of form and
thought; he is vivid and apt, intensely lyrical but without much range of
thought. He has deep intuitions but no comprehensive grasp of life.
His criticism is, on the whole, the least important part of his work. He

had a few good and brilliant ideas which came at just the right time to
make a stir in the world, and these his logical mind and telling style
enabled him to present to the best advantage. As a critic he is neither
broad-minded, learned, nor comprehensive. Nor is he, except in the few
ideas referred to, deep. He is, however, limitedly original--perhaps
intensely original within his narrow scope. But the excellences and
limitations of Poe in any one part of his work were his limitations and
excellences in all.
As Poe's best short stories may be mentioned: Metzengerstein (Jan. 14,
1832, Philadelphia Saturday Courier), Ms. Found in a Bottle (October
19, 1833, Baltimore Saturday Visiter), The Assignation (January, 1834,
Godey's Lady's Book), Berenice (March, 1835, Southern Literary
Messenger), Morella (April, 1835, Southern Literary Messenger), The
Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (June, 1835, Southern
Literary Messenger), King Pest: a Tale Containing an Allegory
(September, 1835, Southern Literary Messenger), Shadow: a Parable
(September, 1835, Southern Literary Messenger), Ligeia (September,
1838, American Museum), The Fall of the House of Usher (September,
1839, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine), William Wilson (1839: Gift for
1840), The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (December, 1839,
Burton's Gentleman's Magazine), The Murders in the Rue Morgue
(April, 1841, Graham's Magazine), A Descent into the Maelstrom (May,
1841, Graham's Magazine), Eleonora (1841: Gift for 1842), The
Masque of the Red Death (May, 1842, Graham's Magazine), The Pit
and the Pendulum (1842: Gift for 1843), The Tell-Tale Heart (January,
1843, Pioneer), The Gold-Bug (June 21 and 28, 1843, Dollar
Newspaper), The Black Cat (August 19, 1843,
United States Saturday
Post), The Oblong Box (September, 1844, Godey's Lady's Book), The
Angel of the Odd (October, 1844, Columbian Magazine), "Thou Art the
Man" (November, 1844, Godey's Lady's Book), The Purloined Letter
(1844: Gift for 1845), The Imp of the Perverse (July, 1845, Graham's
Magazine), The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether (November, 1845,
Graham's Magazine), The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
(December, 1845, American Whig Review), The Cask of Amontillado
(November, 1846, Godey's Lady's Book), and Lander's Cottage (June 9,
1849, Flag of Our Union). Poe's chief collections are: Tales of the

Grotesque and Arabesque (1840), Tales (1845), and The Works of the
Late Edgar Allan Poe (1850-56). These titles have been dropped from
recent editions of his works, however, and the stories brought together
under the title Tales, or under subdivisions furnished by his editors,
such as Tales of Ratiocination, etc.
Caroline Matilda Stansbury Kirkland (1801-1864) wrote of the frontier
life of the Middle West in the mid-nineteenth century. Her principal
collection of short stories is Western Clearings (1845), from which The
Schoolmaster's Progress, first published in The Gift for 1845 (out in
1844), is taken. Other stories republished in that collection are The Ball
at Thram's Huddle (April, 1840, Knickerbocker Magazine),
Recollections of the Land-Fever (September, 1840, Knickerbocker
Magazine), and The Bee-Tree (The Gift for 1842; out in 1841). Her
description of the country schoolmaster, "a puppet cut out of shingle
and jerked by a string," and the local color in general of this and other
stories give her a leading place among the writers of her period who
combined fidelity in delineating frontier life with sufficient fictional
interest to make a pleasing whole of permanent value.
George William Curtis (1824-1892) gained his chief fame as an
essayist, and probably became best known from the department which
he conducted, from 1853, as The Editor's Easy Chair for Harper's
Magazine for many years. His volume, Prue and I (1856), contains
many fictional elements, and a story from it, Titbottom's Spectacles,
which first appeared in Putnam's Monthly for December, 1854, is given
in this volume because it is a good humorous short story rather than
because of its author's general eminence in this field. Other stories of
his worth noting are The Shrouded Portrait (in The Knickerbocker
Gallery, 1855) and The Millenial Club (November, 1858,
Knickerbocker Magazine).
Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) is chiefly known as the author of the
short story, The Man Without a Country (December, 1863, Atlantic
Monthly), but his venture in the comic vein, My Double; and How He
Undid Me (September, 1859, Atlantic Monthly), is equally worthy of
appreciation.