SELECTED

SHORT STORIES

EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY
CLAUDE M. FUESS, PH. D., INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH,
PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS

C⋅EM⋅
Co

NEW YORK

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY

11443.69.4 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

GIFT OF

RADCLIFFE COLLEGE LIBRARY

Merrill's English Texts

THIS series of books includes in complete editions those mas-
terpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use
of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes are
chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the
texts issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity
with the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound
scholarship, characterizes the editing of every book in the series.

In connection with each text, the editor has provided a
critical and historical introduction, including a sketch of the life
of the author and his relation to the thought of his time, critical
opinions of the work in question chosen from the great body of
English criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the author.
Ample explanatory notes of such passages in the text as call for
special attention are supplied, but irrelevant annotation and
explanations of the obvious are rigidly excluded.

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1914

BY

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.

PREFACE

THE aim of this book is to present specimens of the Short Story at its best. A special effort has been made to include the work of English, French, and American masters of the Short Story, and also to illustrate different methods of construction and style. The selections are arranged in approximate chronological order, so that the evolution of the literary type may be traced from the time of Scott to that of Kipling.

Since the collection will almost invariably be used for reading only, and not for detailed study, the Notes have mainly been confined to short biographies of the authors and to compact comment on the stories themselves.

The Introduction is based largely upon the critical investigations of such authorities as Professors Brander Matthews, Henry S. Canby, Charles S. Baldwin, Bliss Perry, and C. Alphonso Smith. Special acknowledgment is due the following publishers for permission to print material copyrighted by them: to Charles Scribner's Sons for Stevenson's Sire de Malétroit's Door; to Doubleday, Page and Co. for O. Henry's A Chaparral Christmas Gift; to the John Lane Company for Kenneth Grahame's The Blue Room from The Golden Age (Copyright, 1897, by John Lane): and to Harper and Brothers for Coppée's The Substitute.

ANDOVER, MASS.

February 1, 1914.

C. M. F.