THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 1839. Edgar Allan Poe.

THE GOLD-BUG. 1843. Edgar Allan Poe.

THE BIRTHMARK. 1843. Nathaniel Hawthorne.

ETHAN BRAND. 1848. Nathaniel Hawthorne.

THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR. 1878. Robert Louis Stevenson.

MARKHEIM. 1884. Robert Louis Stevenson.


INTRODUCTION

HISTORY OF THE SHORT-STORY

Just when, where, and by whom story-telling was begun no one can say.
From the first use of speech, no doubt, our ancestors have told
stories of war, love, mysteries, and the miraculous performances of
lower animals and inanimate objects. The ultimate source of all
stories lies in a thorough democracy, unhampered by the restrictions
of a higher civilization. Many tales spring from a loathsome filth
that is extremely obnoxious to our present day tastes. The remarkable
and gratifying truth is, however, that the short-story, beginning in
the crude and brutal stages of man's development, has gradually
unfolded to greater and more useful possibilities, until in our own
time it is a most flexible and moral literary form.

The first historical evidence in the development of the story shows no