Famous Stories Every Child Should Know

by Hamilton Wright Mabie

Overview

The group of stories brought together in this volume differ from legends because they have, with one exception, no core of fact at the centre, from myths because they make no attempt to personify or explain the forces or processes of nature, from fairy stories because they do not often bring on to the stage actors of a different nature from ours. They give full play to the fancy as in "A Child's Dream of a Star," "The King of the Golden River," "Undine," and "The Snow Image"; but they are not poetic records of the facts of life, attempts to shape those facts "to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart." In the Introduction to the book of Fairy Tales in this series, those familiar and much loved stories which have been repeated to children for unnumbered generations and will be repeated to the end of time, are described as "records of the free and joyful play of the imagination, opening doors through hard conditions to the spirit, which craves power, freedom, happiness; righting wrongs, and redressing injuries; defeating base designs; rewarding patience and virtue; crowning true love with happiness; placing the powers of darkness under the control of man and making their ministers his servants." The stories which make up this volume are closer to experience and come, for the most part, nearer to the every-day happenings of life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781537650609
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	09/12/2016
Series:	Children's Classics , #46
Pages:	188
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Hamilton Wright Mabie, A.M., L.H.D., LL.D. (December 13, 1846 - December 31, 1916) was an American essayist, editor, critic, and lecturer.




He was born at Cold Spring, N. Y. in 1846. Mabie was the youngest child of Sarah Colwell Mabie who was from a wealthy Scottish-English family and Levi Jeremiah Mabie, whose ancestors were Scots-Dutch. They were early immigrants to New Amsterdam, New Netherland about 1647.




Due to business opportunities with the opening of the Erie Canal his family moved to Buffalo, New York when he was approaching school age. At the young age of 16 he passed his college entrance examination, but waited a year before he attended Williams College (1867) and the Columbia Law School (1869).




In 1890, a small collection of Mabie's essays which reflected upon life, literature and nature were published as a volume entitled My Study Fire".




He received honorary degrees from his own alma mater, from Union College, and from Western Reserve and Washington and Lee universities. Although he passed his bar exams in 1869 he hated both the study and practice of law.




In 1876 he married Jeanette Trivett. In the summer of 1879 he was hired to work at the weekly magazine, Christian Union (renamed The Outlook in 1893), an association that lasted until his death.

Read an Excerpt

IV UNDINE I. HOW THE KNIGHT CAME TO THE FISHERMAN'S COTTAGE ONCE it may be some hundreds of years ago there lived a good old Fisherman, who, on a fine summer's evening, was sitting before the door mending his nets. He dwelt in a land of exceeding beauty. The green slope, upon which he had built his hut, stretched far out into .. great lake; and it seemed either that the cape, enamoured of the glassy blue waters, had pressed forward into their bosom, or that the lake had lovingly folded in its arms the blooming promontory, with her waving grass and flowers, and the refreshing shade of her tall trees. Each bade the other welcome, and increased its own beauty by so doing. This lovely nook was scarcely ever visited by mankind, except by the Fisherman and his family. For behind the promonotory lay a very wild forest, which, beside being gloomy and pathless, had too bad a name as the resort of wondrous spirits and goblins, to be crossed by anyone who could help it. Yet the pious old Fisherman went through it without being molested, whenever he walked to a large city beyond the forest, to dispose of the costly fish that he caught in the lake. For him, indeed, there was little danger, even in that forest; for his thoughts were almost all thoughts of devotion, and his custom was to carol forth to Heaven a loud and heartfelt hymn, on first setting foot within the treacherous shades. As he sat this evening most peacefully over his nets, he was startled in an unwonted manner by a rustling sound in the forest, like that of a man and horse; and the noise came nearer and nearer. The dreams he had had in many a stormy night of the spirits of the forest started up before his mind, particularly theimage of a gigantic long snow-white man, who kept nodding his head mysteriously. Nay, as he...

Table of Contents

I A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR,
II THE KING OF THE GOLDEN RIVER; OR, THE BLACK BROTHERS,
III THE SNOW-IMAGE: A CHILDISH MIRACL,
IV UNDINE,
V THE STORY OF RUTH,
VI THE GREAT STONE FACE,
VII THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN SHOWING HOW HE WENT FARTHER THAN HE,
INTENDED AND CAME SAFE HOME AGAIN,
VIII THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY,
IX THE NÜRNBERG STOVE,
X RAB AND HIS FRIENDS,
XI PETER RUGG, THE MISSING MAN,