Book Description

Excerpt from Stories New and Old: Typical American and English Tales Two facts about the short-story are very signifi cant: it is probably the oldest literary form, and it was the latest in point of time to receive exact definition of its purpose and scope and full unfold ing of its artistic and dramatic resources. The first act means that the short-story is a vital and not an artificial form of literature, and fits itself easily and almost instinctively to certain impulses and interests of men; the second fact the fact that the short story had to wait for the insight and skill of men of the genius of Poe, Hawthorne, Stevenson, Kipling, and Maupassant means that as a literary form the short-story ranks with the highest and most exact ing forms of art. The epic had immense popularity, and for centuries took the place of the history, the story of adventure, the novel, the magazine, and the newspaper; but the epic, by reason of the breadth and volume of human action which it records, has been less exacting in the matter of structure and. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.