_A Struggle for Life_ (July, 1867, _Atlantic_), although it was only
_Marjorie Daw_ that attracted much attention at the time. Then came
George Washington Cable's (1844- ) _"Posson Jone',"_ (April 1, 1876,
_Appleton's Journal_) and a little later Charles Egbert Craddock's
(1850- ) _The Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove_ (May, 1878,
_Atlantic_) and _The Star in the Valley_ (November, 1878, _Atlantic_).
But the work of Cable and Craddock, though of sterling worth, won its
way gradually. Even Edward Everett Hale's (1822-1909) _My Double; and
How He Undid Me_ (September, 1859, _Atlantic_) and _The Man Without a
Country_ (December, 1863, _Atlantic_) had fallen comparatively
still-born. The truly astounding short story successes, after Poe and
Hawthorne, then, were Spofford, Bret Harte and Aldrich. Next came
Frank Richard Stockton (1834-1902). "The interest created by the
appearance of _Marjorie Daw_," says Prof. Pattee, "was mild compared
with that accorded to Frank R. Stockton's _The Lady or the Tiger?_
(1884). Stockton had not the technique of Aldrich nor his naturalness
and ease. Certainly he had not his atmosphere of the _beau monde_ and
his grace of style, but in whimsicality and unexpectedness and in that
subtle art that makes the obviously impossible seem perfectly
plausible and commonplace he surpassed not only him but Edward Everett
Hale and all others. After Stockton and _The Lady or the Tiger?_ it
was realized even by the uncritical that short story writing had
become a subtle art and that the master of its subtleties had his
reader at his mercy."[8] The publication of Stockton's short stories
covers a period of over forty years, from _Mahala's Drive_ (November,
1868, _Lippincott's_) to _The Trouble She Caused When She Kissed_
(December, 1911, _Ladies' Home Journal_), published nine years after
his death. Among the more notable of his stories may be mentioned:
_The Transferred Ghost_ (May, 1882, _Century_), _The Lady or the
Tiger?_ (November, 1882, _Century_), _The Reversible Landscape_ (July,