Short Stories of Various Types

Intended for use in American high schools. Only one of these thirteen "stories of various types" is speculative. Here's what the editor says about "types" in the introduction: "[T]here will be found among these tales the detective story by the inimitable Conan Doyle; the true story of adventure, with an animal for the central figure, by Katherine Mayo; the fanciful story by the great stylist Hawthorne; tales of humor or pathos; of simple human love; of character; of nature; of realism; and of idealism." [emphasis added]

The study questions about "Feathertop" betray a certain ambivalence about "fanciful" stories on the editor's part: she writes, "This is a fanciful story. Do you like it as well as 'The Gift of the Magi' or a 'A Reward of Merit' in which there are real people? Does Hawthorne show his personality and boyhood training in this story as much as [Hamlin] Garland showed his in 'A Camping Trip'? Which do you think more difficult to write, a story wholly from the imagination like 'Feathertop,' or one from experience like 'A Camping Trip'?"

The list of additional reading suggestions at the end of the textbook, consisting of 43 collections plus 49 individual stories, contains the following speculative items: "A Passion in the Desert" (Balzac); The Wind in the Rosebush and Other Stories of the Supernatural (Freeman); "The Great Carbuncle" (Hawthorne); "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" and "The Brushwood Boy" (Kipling); "The Diamond Lens," "What Was It?" and "The Thing" (O'Brien); "The Pit and the Pendulum" (Poe); "Markheim" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (Stevenson); "The Lady or the Tiger?" (Stockton)

• Price from 1924 Illinois Department of Education bulletin.
• Small hardcover, approximately 6.5 by 4.25 inches. Blue cloth cover stamped in black with "Merrill's English Texts [over] Short Stories of Various Types," no dust jacket.
• Title page: "Merrill's English Texts / Short Stories of Various Types / Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Laura F. Freck, Head of the English Department in the High School, Jamestown, New York / Charles E. Merrill Company / New York and Chicago"
• On reverse of title page: "Copyright, 1920 / by Charles E. Merrill Co." below which is printed a small "[8]" (not known if this is a printing number). No obvious indication of printing number or publication date anywhere in the book. WorldCat only lists one edition, no later printings.
• Begins with an introduction by Laura F. Freck titled "To the Teacher". At the end, notes, further reading suggestions, and study questions.
• Only speculative content listed here.