Storytelling as a fundamental human impulse, one that announces itself at the moment, hidden in infancy, that dreams begin—this is what the poet and critic Randall Jarrell set out to illuminate in this extraordinary book. Here Jarrell presents ballads, parables, anecdotes, and legends along with some of the finest work of Chekhov, Babel, Elizabeth Bowen, Isak Dinesen, Kafka, Peter Taylor, and Katherine Anne Porter. This wonderful anthology, with its celebrated introductory essay, enlarges and deepens our perception of the storyteller's art and its central place in the world of our feelings.

Contents

RANDALL JARRELL: Introduction

FRANZ KAFKA: A Country Doctor

ANTON CHEKHOV: Gusev

RAINER MARIA RILKE: The Wrecked Houses; The Big Thing

ROBERT FROST: The Witch of Coös

GIOVANNI VERGA: La Lupa

NIKOLAI GOGOL: The Nose

ELIZABETH BOWEN: Her Table Spread

LUDWIG TIECK: Fair Eckbert

BERTOLT BRECHT: Concerning the Infanticide, Marie Farrar

LEO TOLSTOY: The Three Hermits

PETER TAYLOR: What You Hear from 'Em?

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN: The Fir Tree

KATHERINE ANNE PORTER: He

ANONYMOUS: The Red King and the Witch

ANTON CHEKHOV: Rothschild's Fiddle

THE BROTHERS GRIMM: Cat and Mouse in Partnership

E. M. FORSTER: The Story of the Siren

THE BOOK OF JONAH

FRANZ KAFKA: The Bucket-Rider

SAINT-SIMON: The Death of Monseigneur

ISAAC BABEL: Awakening

CHUANG T'ZU: Five Anecdotes

HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL: A Tale of the Cavalry

WILLIAM BLAKE: The Mental Traveller

D. H. LAWRENCE: Samson and Delilah

LEO TOLSTOY: The Porcelain Doll

IVAN TURGENEV: Byezhin Prairie

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: The Ruined Cottage

FRANK O'CONNOR: Peasants

ISAK DINESEN: Sorrow-Acre