Setting does not fit the Plot, if the Plot does not rise gracefully from
the Setting, if the Characters do not move naturally and
self-revealingly through both, the story is a failure. Emerson might
well have had our three parts of the short story in mind when he wrote,

All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.





CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION

I. ESTHER, From the Old Testament

II. THE HISTORY OF ALI BABA AND THE FORTY ROBBERS, From "The
Arabian Nights"

III. RIP VAN WINKLE, By Washington Irving

IV. THE GOLD-BUG, By Edgar Allan Poe

V. A CHRISTMAS CAROL, By Charles Dickens

VI. THE GREAT STONE FACE, By Nathaniel Hawthorne