The Best American Humorous Short Stories | Page 4

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. It was his first published story of importance. Other noteworthy stories of his are: The Brick Moon (October, November and