in intention, but
read in the light of later days their apparent serious delineations of
the frolics and foibles of their time take on a highly humorous
aspect.

George Pope Morris (1802-1864) was one of the founders of _The New
York Mirror_, and for a time its editor. He is best known as the
author of the poem, _Woodman, Spare That Tree_, and other poems and
songs. _The Little Frenchman and His Water Lots_ (1839), the first
story in the present volume, is selected not because Morris was
especially prominent in the field of the short story or humorous prose
but because of this single story's representative character. Edgar
Allan Poe (1809-1849) follows with _The Angel of the Odd_ (October,
1844, _Columbian Magazine_), perhaps the best of his humorous stories.
_The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether_ (November, 1845, _Graham's
Magazine_) may be rated higher, but it is not essentially a humorous
story. Rather it is incisive satire, with too biting an undercurrent
to pass muster in the company of the genial in literature. Poe's
humorous stories as a whole have tended to belittle rather than
increase his fame, many of them verging on the inane. There are some,
however, which are at least excellent fooling; few more than that.

Probably this is hardly the place for an extended discussion of Poe,
since the present volume covers neither American literature as a whole
nor the American short story in general, and Poe is not a humorist in
his more notable productions. Let it be said that Poe invented or
perfected--more exactly, perfected his own invention of--the modern
short story; that is his general and supreme achievement. He also
stands superlative for the quality of three varieties of short
stories, those of terror, beauty and ratiocination. In the first class
belong _A Descent into the Maelstrom_ (1841), _The Pit and the
Pendulum_ (1842), _The Black Cat_ (1843), and _The Cask of
Amontillado_ (1846). In the realm of beauty his notable productions
are _The Assignation_ (1834), _Shadow: a Parable_ (1835), _Ligeia_
(1838), _The Fall of the House of Usher_ (1839), _Eleonora_ (1841),
and _The Masque of the Red Death_ (1842). The tales of
ratiocination--what are now generally termed detective
stories--include _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_ (1841) and its
sequel, _The Mystery of Marie Roget_ (1842-1843), _The Gold-Bug_
(1843), _The Oblong Box_ (1844), _"Thou Art the Man"_ (1844), and _The
Purloined Letter_ (1844).

Then, to