I love Frank Stockton. His tales are fresh and distinctly American, and the humor is gentle and wry. Even his violence is gentle and wry, come to think of it. Great stories to rediscover when so much of modern writing relies so heavily on the 'F' word and some sort of sensationalized and graphic assault. I was very glad to have all these stories in one book. I had only found some of them here and there. Now I have more than ever and it felt a bit like a birthday present to open this book.
Written in the late 1880s by America's own fabulist, Frank Stockton, these stories are timeless. All are wonderful folk-tale type stories but with Stockton's on magnificent twist of imagination and humor. The Lady or The Tiger is still a noted story - did she or didn't she let that tiger eat her lover? We'll never know for sure. My favorite is The Griffin and the Minor Canon, in which a nice but man-eating Griffin finds the only human worthy of being eaten in a town much like yours is the humble, loving Minor Canon.
The classic The Lady or Tiger story, plus its sequel, The Discourager of Hesitancy, which also leads the reader guessing the ending. Plus ten more Stockton stories. A good read.
