Showing results by narrator "Christopher Ragland" in All Categories

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

In this collection of short stories some of our most popular and well-known authors are grouped together with an unfortunate tag: dead at 40. These authors are not run-of-the-mill or ten a penny; many are literary leviathans who left enduring works of literature and sadly may have left us many more had they lived. We will never know.

William Austin was born on 2nd March 1778 in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. Although he was a frequent contributor to local periodicals on various subjects from Unitarian theology to chemistry to legal history, nothing quite approached the popularity of ‘Peter Rugg: The Missing Man’. This story and its sequels, constructed as long letters, were originally published in the New England Galaxy periodical between 1824 and 1827. So credible was his writing premise that they were accepted as a factual recounting of local legends rather than Austin’s fiction.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. Hawthorne’s short stories were first published in magazines but in 1837 were collected and published as ‘Twice-Told Tales’. A steady literary career still did not come his way and so he worked in a good position at Salem’s port and married the love of his life, Sophia Peabody. They moved to live in ‘The Old Manse’ at Concord, Massachusetts.

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