Transcriber's note.
Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently repaired. Variablespelling has been retained.
A HISTORY OF STORY-TELLING
EDITED BY ARTHUR RANSOME
THE WORLD'S STORY-TELLERS
Each volume contains a selection of complete stories, anIntroductory Essay by Arthur Ransome, and a FrontispiecePortrait by J. Gavin.
List of volumes already published:—
- GAUTIER
- HOFFMANN
- POE
- HAWTHORNE
- MÉRIMÉE
- BALZAC
- CHATEAUBRIAND
- THE ESSAYISTS
- CERVANTES
- Others in preparation
In cloth, 1s. net; cloth gilt, gilt top, 1s. 6d. net per vol.
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
T. C. AND E. C. JACK
A HISTORY OF
STORY-TELLING
STUDIES IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF NARRATIVE
BY
ARTHUR RANSOME
Editor of 'The World's Story-Tellers'
WITH 27 PORTRAITS BY J. GAVIN
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
16 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
1909
TO MY WIFE
PREFACE
This is a spring day, and I am writing in a floodof sunlight in front of a brown French inn. Abovemy head there is the dusty branch of a tree stuckout of a window, the ancient sign that gavepoint to the proverb, 'Good wine needs no bush.'Good books, I suppose, need no prefaces. Buthonest authors realise that their books are neveras good as they had planned them. A preface,put on last and worn in front, to show what theywould have liked their books to be, is the pleasantestof their privileges. And I am not inclined todo without it.
A book that calls itself a history of a subjectwith as many byeways and blind alleys as existin the history of story-telling, is precisely the kindof book that one would wish one's enemy to havewritten. Everybody who reads it grumbles becausesomething or other is left out that, if they hadhad the writing of it, would have been put in.And yet in the case of this particular book (howmany authors have thought the same!) criticism[viii]of omissions is like quarrelling with a guinea-pigbecause it has not got a tail. It is not the guinea-pig's