The Short Story by W. Patterson Atkinson A.M. - The Original Classic Edition Finally available, a high quality book of the original classic edition. It was previously published by other bona fide publishers, and is now, after many years, back in print. This is a new and freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work today. These selected paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: While lacking some of the technical excellence of Poe by often not knowing how to begin or how to end a story, by sacrificing economy or compression, yet he presented something new in making a story of situation, that is, by putting a character in certain circumstances and working out the results, as The Birthmark (1843). ...Using yet another principle of classification-material-we obtain: stories of dramatic interest, that is, of some striking happening that would hold the audience of a play in a highly excited state, as Stevenson"s Sire de Malétroit"s Door; of love, as Bunner"s Love in Old Cloathes; of roman[Pg xvii]tic adventure, as Kipling"s Man Who Would Be King; of terror, as Poe"s Pit and the Pendulum; of the supernatural, as Crawford"s The Upper Berth; of humor, as humor, as Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews" A Good Samaritan; of animals, as Kipling"s Rikki-tikki-tavi; of psychological analysis, as James" Madonna of the Future; and so on....But however his memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folks, whose good opinion is well worth having; particularly by certain biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their new-year cakes; and have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, or a Queen Anne"s Farthing.][...Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; and never[Pg 3] failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. ...His fences were con[Pg 4]tinually falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray or get among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had some out-door work to do, so that though his patrimonial estate had dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood.