Extremely Entertaining Short Stories

Stacy Aumonier's comic stories are among the funniest ever written. His serious works observe the human condition with wit and elegance. All of them are page-turners. Alfred Hitchcock was a great… Lue lisää Stacy Aumonier's comic stories are among the funniest ever written. His serious works observe the human condition with wit and elegance. All of them are page-turners. Alfred Hitchcock was a great fan, and adapted some of his stories for television. During his short writing career, from 1913 until his early death in 1928, Stacy Aumonier enjoyed an unrivalled reputation as a short-story writer. Through the best of his stories, Nobel prize winner John Galsworthy predicted he would 'outlive all the writers of his day. ' James Hilton (author of 'Goodbye Mr Chips' and 'Lost Horizon') said of Aumonier: 'I think his very best works ought to be included in any anthology of the best short stories ever written. ' He took his characters from every rung of society (sometimes in the one story, as in 'The Octave of Jealousy') and from every walk and every age of life: sons who have wasted their inheritance; criminals; farm labourers; a clergyman's sister; gold-diggers; an effective little tyrant (aged 4 or 5? ) in 'The Song of Praise'; a divinely depicted music-hall comedian in the exquisite 'The Funny Man's Day'; the hapless fish-and-chips trader in the hilarious 'A Good Action. ' His talent for putting flesh on those characters in a few words was remarkable, such as in his portrait of the daunting club habitue in 'Juxtapositions': 'In spite of his missing limb, St Clair Chasseloup was the kind of man who always looked as though he had just had a cold bath, done Swedish drill, and then passed through the hairdresser's on his way to your presence'; or of the house-party guests being assessed as the possible perpetrators of a crime in 'Freddie Finds Himself': 'They all looked well off, well fed, and slightly vacant, entirely innocent of anything except the knowledge of what is done or what is not done. ' 'He gets values right,' said Galsworthy of him, 'and that is nearly everything,' adding: 'And how he puts his finger on weak spots! ' Here is a selection of the most entertaining Aumonier stories, and it comes with a Guarantee: For a long journey, a sojourn laid up in bed, or just hard times, this book is a sure thing.