Showing results by author "Frank R. Stockton" in All Categories

A brilliant short story demonstrating how a truly balanced set of dilemmas can allow a reader to conclude two different endings. In this case a young man is faced with two doors. One holds a door with a ferocious tiger. The other? A beautiful lady whom he would immediately marry. The struggle comes not so much in defining a choice, but the reasons that brought the young man to the choice, and who helps him make the choice.

"The Lady or the Tiger?" is the story of a king who devised a particularly inventive form of punishment. When a courtier dares to fall in love with the king's daughter, he is forced to choose between two doors: one with a lady behind it, and the other with a tiger.

Being an English author in a new and different culture seems to work its magic when these two are placed together in the same spot with a rich vocabulary; ideas seem more fully formed and characters have another edge to their existence. For the outsider looking in, more can be revealed and shared with ourselves.

Frank Richard Stockton (1834-1902) was an author and humorist, best known for a series of fairy tales that were hugely popular during the latter part of the 19th century. Stockton avoided the moralizing common to children's stories of the time, and instead humorously poked fun at the abuse of power, greed, violence, and a host of other human flaws. A griffin (a beast that is a combination of eagle and lion) comes to a town that has his likeness above the church door. Having never seen himself, the griffin becomes entranced with the statue, but his presence frightens the villagers....

A double adventure written at the end of the 19th century, somewhat in the theme of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth, telling of a submarine trip in the year 1947 to reach the North Pole and a project to examine the center of the Earth by boring a deep shaft. What they find at the core of the planet surprises the enterprising explorers.

The stories in this imaginative collection include: "The Queen's Museum", "The Christmas Truants", "The Griffin and the Minor Canon", "Old Pipes and the Dryad", "The Bee-Man of Orn", "The Clocks of Rondaine", "Christmas Before Last", "Prince Hassak's March", "The Philopena" and "The Accommodating Circumstance". 

Includes 'Titbottoms Spectacles' by George William Curtis, 'The First Piano in Camp' by Samuel Davis, 'Mr Tolman' by Frank R. Stockton, 'Mrs Bullfrog' by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 'Against His Judgement' by Robert Grant, 'A Desperate Adventure' by Max Adeler, 'Occurence at Owl Creek' by Ambrose Bierce, 'The Stout Gentleman' by Washington Irving, 'Clothes 'by Gustav Kobbé and 'Negative Gravity' by Frank R. Stockton.

The Lady or the Tiger, which will it be? The unanswerable question, but certainly something to think about. And going even further, did the princess regret her decision later? Originally published in 1882, in The Century magazine by Frank R Stockton, this short story has become an allegorical expression for an unsolvable problem.

A glittering collection of classic stories for children, which have delighted generations and continue to appeal.

When a passing magician tells the old Bee-Man of Orn that he has at some time been transformed from another state, he sets off to discover his own origins. Was he formerly a nobleman? A dragon? A giant? After much searching and many adventures, where his faithful bees help him, he finally discovers the truth. And it is not what either he or the magician expected....

A man is sentenced to an unusual punishment for having a romance with a king's beloved daughter. Taken to the public arena, he is faced with two doors, behind one of which is a hungry tiger that will devour him. Behind the other is a beautiful lady-in-waiting, whom he will have to marry if he finds her.

In addition to the children's tales that he is usually known for, Frank R. Stockton also wrote some ghost stories. This particular piece is from 1900. After a gentleman purchases an abandoned mansion, he begins to fall in love with the ghost of a young woman who returns to her old home once a year, on Christmas Eve, for a single hour. But what happens when he soon meets her, not as a specter but in real life?

"The Lady Or The Tiger?" is Frank R. Stockton's most famous work, first published in 1882. The semi-barbaric ruler of an ancient kingdom has devised an unusual method of justice. Offenders are placed in the arena of an amphitheatre where they must choose between two doors. Behind one is a hungry tiger and behind the other a beautiful woman whom they will marry. Their fate is left entirely to chance. When the king's daughter's secret lover is accused, only she knows which door hides which destiny.

In the ancient country of Orn an old man called the Bee-man spends his life in the company of bees. He lives humbly and contentedly until a Junior Sorcerer happens by with some disturbing news: The Bee-man, he says, has been transformed - he once was someone (or something) entirely different. But who? Or what? A giant or a prince? A dog or a dragon? The now restless Bee-man sets out on a quest to ascertain his original form, telling himself, "When I see it, I shall be drawn toward it."

The Lady, or The Tiger, written by Frank R. Stockton and narrated by Rebecca Thomas, invites the listener into a semi-barbaric world where justice is decided by fate. The right choice rewards the innocent with marriage; the wrong choice punishes the guilty by serving him to a starving tiger. When the princess' lover is sent to the arena, she discovers the secret of the choice. But what choice does she herself make?

En esta interesante obra nos adentramos en los encantos y misterios de las dríades. Es todo una aventura imaginar cómo sería nuestra interacción con esas impresionantes criaturas.