Tuesday Intros and Teaser Tuesday - '100 Great Short Stories' edited by James Daley

The fact that I am a fan of short stories should come as no surprise to regular visitors to A Universe in Words. I am just fascinated by how authors manage to put so much into only a few pages. A lot of short stories are better than fully fledged novels! Today I'm using the short story collection I reviewed yesterday: One Hundred Great Short Stories, edited by James Daley, published by Dover Publications.

This treasury of one hundred tales offers students and other readers of short fiction a splendid selection of stories by masters of the form. Contributors from around the world include Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Dickens, Anton Chekhov, Mark Twain, Saki, Luigi Pirandello, Kate Chopin, and Ring Lardner.The stories, which are arranged chronologically, begin with tales by Daniel Defoe ("The Apparition of Mrs. Veal," 1705), Benjamin Franklin ("Alice Addertongue," 1732), and Washington Irving ("The Devil and Tom Walker," 1824). Highlights from the nineteenth century include Ivan Turgenev's "The District Doctor" (1852), Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron" (1886), Thomas Hardy's "Squire Petrick's Lady" (1891), and Rudyard Kipling's "Wee Willie Winkie" (1899). From the twentieth century come James Joyce's "Araby" (1914), Franz Kafka's "The Judgment" (1916), Virginia Woolf's "The Mark on the Wall" (1921), "The Broken Boot" (1923) by John Galsworthy, and many others.

Tuesday Intros is hosted by Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea and Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading.

Intro: (from 'The Apparition of Mrs. Veal' by Daniel Defoe)

'This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good authority, that my reading and conversation have not given me anything like it. It is fit to gratify the most ingenious and serious inquirer.' 1%

I really liked this beginning. For me ghost stories always depend on the narrator and such a strong presence as in this story means that while I don't have to believe in ghosts, I can believe that the narrator believes in ghosts!


Teaser: (from 'Journalism in Tennessee' by Mark Twain)

'When I went on duty I found the chief editor sitting tilted back in a three-legged chair with his feet on a pine table. There was another pine table in the room, and another afflicted chair, and both were half buried under newspapers and scraps and sheets of manuscript.' 22%

I haven't actually read anything by Mark Twain and this was the beginning of the short story. I really like the description in this teaser.

So, that is what I just read! What are you teasing with today?