Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902) wrote famous stories in the form of fairy tales, ghost stories or romances. All of them have a sharp sense of humor. When "The Lady or the Tiger?" appeared in Century Magazine in 1882, it caused excitement all over the country. Hundreds of people wrote letters to the magazine or to the newspapers about it. Many letters demanded an answer to the question that the story asks. Others asked if the story was really about government, or psychology, or the battle of the sexes, or something else. Wisely, Stockton never answered any of the letters. The story remains as fresh today as it was then.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was born in Salem, Massachusetts. His father was the captain of a sailing ship and died when Hawthorne was only four years old. Hawthorne went to live with his mother’s large family. As a young man he read a lot. By the time he was 16, he had read almost all of Shakespeare’s plays.
In 1821, Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in Maine. There he met Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a famous American author, and Franklin Pierce, the future president of the United States. After his graduation, Hawthorne spent the next 12 years writing. His first published book was Twice Told Tales, a collection of stories. Later, Hawthorne wrote his most famous book, The Scarlet Letter. When Franklin Pierce became president, he appointed Hawthorne the United States Consul at Liverpool, England. Hawthorne lives in England and Italy for many years. In 1864, he died suddenly on a trip with President Pierce.
from Kay, Judith and Gelshenen, Rosemary. Discovering Fiction--A Reader of North American Short Stories, An Introduction, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2013, p.61.
Kate Chopin* was born in 1851 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her family was rich. She married, and had six children. She lived a family life like other rich ladies in those days. But she was well-educated and liked to read and write. After her husband died in 1883, she began to write stories. She also wrote a book called The Awakening. This book, and many of her stories, shocked readers at that time. She wrote about the freedom of women. But at that time, most women lived only for their families. Because the stories were shocking, people did not read them for many years after her death in 1904. Now Kate Chopin’s writing has been discovered again. People are interested in her life and work.
*Great American Stories, p. 27
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was born Edith Newbold Jones. She was part of a wealthy and distinguished New York family. She was educated privately in America and in Europe. From 1910 until her death, she lived in France. She published many short stories and poems, and books, which became bestsellers. One of her novels, The Age of Innocence, won the Pulitzer Prize. Wharton became a famous and well-loved writer. Her work gives the reader a great picture of what life was like for privileged families and women of her time.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe’s parents died when he was a little child. After that, he lived with a family named Allan. They moved to England for five years when Poe was six. Although he was an excellent student and swimmer as a boy and young man, Poe led a very unhappy, troubled life. He often fought with Mr. Allan, and finally separated from him at the age of twenty-two. Allan had become very rich, but Poe was poor for the rest of his life. He worked for magazines, but drank too much and lost many jobs. He married his young cousin, Virginia, but she became sick and died. Through all his difficulties, Poe never stopped writing, and his writing took many forms. He often wrote about the dark side of the human heart. He was interested in what lies between the real and the unreal in our lives. People remember Poe now for his poetry, and for his dark, strange stories like “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Poe died at the age of forty in 1849.
*Great American Stories, p. 55
Willa Sibert Cather, (Dec. 7th, 1873-Apr. 24th, 1947), was a writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains. She was born in Virginia, but she moved to Nebraska with her family when she was 9 years old. Nebraska was still considered a frontier state. Willa was influenced by the vastness of the prairie, and the various cultures of the immigrant and Native American families in the area.
After she graduated from the University of Nebraska, she lived and worked in Pittsburgh for 10 years, supporting herself as a magazine editor and high school English teacher. At the age of 33, she moved to New York City, her primary home for the rest of her life. She decided to focus on her writing. Willa Cather was a strong, independent woman, who never married at a time when marriage was almost a requirement for women. Her closest relationships were with other women.
Cather achieved recognition as a novelist of the pioneer experience. As her writing progressed, she also wrote about people’s emotional experiences while living harsh and oftentimes isolated lives. Besides her novels, she also wrote short stories. “Paul’s Case” is her most famous one.
O.Henry’s real name was William Sydney Porter. He was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1862. He left school at the age of fifteen and worked in many different places. He also spent three years in prison because he took money from a bank. He started to write stories while he was in prison. O’Henry is famous for his stories with surprise endings. “The Gift of the Magi” is his most famous story. It is from the book The Four Million, stories about the everyday people of New York City. O’Henry died in 1901.
*Great American Stories, p. 1
Sarah Orne Jewett was born in 1849 in South Berwick, Maine. She lived there quietly near the sea most of her life. Her father was a doctor. As a child, she went with him on his trips to see sick people in Maine’s fishing and farm villages. She learned more this way than she learned in school, which she didn’t like. She also learned by reading the many books in her parents’ house. She began writing stories when she was very young. All her stories were about the simple lives of the country people she had met on her trips with her father. Her stories show her love of nature as well as human nature. The woods, fields, and animals of Maine are almost like characters in her stories. Her best-known book is called Country of the Pointed Firs. (Maine is well known for its pine and fir trees-evergreens, as they are called.) In 1909, Sarah Orne Jewett died in the same house in which she had been born and raised.
*from C.G.Draper, Great American Stories 1, 3rd. edition, longman.com, 2001, p. 83