Stories by American Authors, Volume 2

In Short

This collection brings together five mid-nineteenth-century American short stories that blend supernatural comedy, dark romance, tragic melodrama, and courtroom drama. Across varied settings—from quiet New England country estates and Swiss glacier chasms to imperial Roman dining tables and isolated Italian mountain tracks—characters wrestle with secrets, overreaching ambitions, and unyielding family ties. The book captures the era’s fascination with unseen forces, scientific arrogance, and moral dilemmas, showing how hidden truths inevitably breach the surface. It survives as a striking record of early American literary craft, where Gothic dread meets sharp social satire.

The Story

The volume opens with Frank R. Stockton’s lighthearted tale of spectral misdirection, "The Transferred Ghost." A tongue-tied young lover stays at the grand country estate of John Hinckman, desperately enamored of his host’s niece, Madeline, but terrified to declare his feelings. His anxiety is compounded by the sudden appearance of a bewildered ghost—an apparition assigned to Hinckman before the old man has actually died. When the ghost tries to help the young man woo Madeline, its unseen presence causes a disastrous misunderstanding: the narrator utters aloud a command meant for the ghost, which Madeline takes as a cold rejection of herself. She leaves in a fury, but the spirit realizes the error and helps mend the rift, paving the way for a truthful confession.

The mood darkens considerably in "A Martyr to Science." A former physician recounts his slide into intellectual obsession after fleeing political turmoil in Europe. Fascinated by the historical anatomist Vesalius—who was rumored to have dissected a living human—the narrator takes on a brilliant, devoted young assistant named Guy. Under the guise of mentorly love, the doctor manipulates Guy’s loyalty until the pupil agrees to participate in a fatal medical experiment. Just as the narrator prepares the agonizing chemical caustic for the final step, two unexpected visitors burst into the room. They are not grand patrons of science, but physicians who quietly slip their fingers over the narrator’s pulse, revealing that his grandiose experiment was a delusion born of insanity.

"A Dinner-Party" shifts the focus to a dinner table where an enigmatic guest named Malcolm dazzles the company with classical lore and legal debate. Malcolm later convinces his host, the respected attorney Winfield Burchard, to assist him after he is caught fleeing a neighborhood burglary. Claiming innocence, Malcolm tricks Burchard into posting a massive bail bond and retaining a fraudulent draft. When Malcolm disappears to New Orleans, Burchard faces ruin and scandal. Yet on the eve of the trial, Malcolm reappears, declaring he will not forfeit his bail. Through a brilliant defense involving a secretly swapped statuette and a misfitting embroidered mat, Malcolm wins an acquittal for his accomplice, revealing that his entire social performance was an elaborate, calculated game.

In "Mrs. Knollys," a young English bride loses her husband, Charles, when he slips into a deep crevasse on their Swiss honeymoon. A scientist informs her that the glacier moves so slowly that the ice will not yield his body for forty-five years. Decades pass, and as an old woman with white hair and a bent frame, Mrs. Knollys returns to the ice cavern. There, preserved in the crystal depths, she sees her husband exactly as he was—a twenty-one-year-old boy bearing a faint smile. She weeps over the tragedy of living on while he remained frozen in youth.

The collection closes with "A Story of the Dragon Wynd" (published in this volume as "A Night in the Garden of the Tuileries" / "The Dragon's Fang"), an Italian romance of cruel familial control. Silvia, a gentle girl, is forced toward a convent by her stern brother Matteo and her harsh mother. Silvia loves Claudio, an educated young man who rejected the priesthood. On a night drive through the dark mountain passes, Matteo claims the carriage tilts, and Silvia falls onto a sharp rock. Though Claudio loses his bride under suspicious circumstances, he can prove nothing in a land where sharp knives and silence reign.

How It Unfolds

A awkward suitor encounters a misplaced spirit A timid young man visits a lavish country estate, head over heels for the host's niece, Madeline, but too terrified of her formidable uncle to speak his heart. His quiet courtship is upended when a ghost, mistakenly assigned to the still-living uncle, appears in his bedroom to offer unwanted romantic advice.

A misunderstood comment causes a lovers' rift While trying to converse with Madeline on a sunny porch, the young man snaps at the visible ghost to leave. Madeline believes the sharp rejection is directed at her, blushes with fury, and storms away, leaving the lover convinced his future is utterly ruined.

A mad doctor manipulates a loyal pupil A physician obsessed with the boundaries of human knowledge takes in Guy, a impressionable young scholar who worships him. The doctor systematically bends the youth's mind until Guy agrees to sacrifice his life for a horrific, live-dissection experiment.

Sanity is stripped away in the laboratory As the doctor excitedly mixes the burning chemical caustic to begin the fatal test, two strange men enter the room. They greet him with icy softness and take his wrist, exposing his grand scientific triumph as a manic breakdown inside an asylum.

An imposter dominates an elite dinner table A cultured stranger named Malcolm charms a room of scholars and lawyers with deep knowledge of ancient Roman feasts. He smoothly maneuvers the host, attorney Winfield Burchard, into handling his financial affairs and securing his release after a late-night police chase.

A courtroom trick subverts the law Faced with evidence connecting a burglary to a custom embroidered mat, Malcolm uses a covertly placed spy to swap out a statuette used for comparison. The base fails to fit the mat before the jury, securing an acquittal and leaving the host stunned by his guest's audacity.

A bride waits for the mountain to yield her dead Days after her wedding, Mrs. Knollys watches helplessly as her young husband disappears down a sixteen-hundred-meter glacier chasm. A German scientist calculates that the slow movement of the ice stream will only return his body after a full forty-five years.

Youth and old age meet in the clear ice After four decades of solitary waiting, the white-haired Mrs. Knollys stands in the blue light of the cavern as the sun rises. Through the ice veil, she gazes upon her young bridegroom, perfectly preserved and smiling, completely untouched by the decades that have aged her.

A desperate girl fights a family's command Silvia, a gentle Italian woman, is ordered by her stern brother Matteo to enter a convent despite her love for Claudio, a former seminary student. Trapped in a house where no one cares for her desires, she exchanges secret, desperate notes on a string from her window.

A dark carriage ride ends in quiet tragedy Matteo drives his silent sister up a pitch-black, winding mountain road at night. When Silvia dies from a fatal blow to the temple on a sharp rock, Matteo claims it was an accident, leaving Claudio with a broken heart and no way to demand justice.

The People

• The Narrator of "The Transferred Ghost": A hesitating, highly sensitive lover who lives in terror of his host, John Hinckman. He longs to claim Madeline as his own, but his extreme diffidence leaves him vulnerable to the meddling of an unauthorized ghost.
• Madeline: The proud, swift-tempered niece of John Hinckman who manages his household. She expects directness from her suitor and reacts with fiery indignation when she thinks she has been insulted.
• The Physician in "A Martyr to Science": A cold, brilliant, and deeply unhinged researcher who views human life merely as raw material for scientific immortality. He uses subtle emotional manipulation to dominate his assistant.
• Guy: A young, ingenuous scholar whose intense gratitude for shelter and instruction turns into an absolute, self-sacrificing devotion to his mad master.
• Malcolm: A suave, dazzlingly educated rogue who moves effortlessly through elite society. He uses his deep knowledge of law, literature, and social graces to orchestrate elaborate frauds.
• Winfield Burchard: An honorable, deeply pious attorney who values professional ethics and hospitality, making him the perfect target for Malcolm's cunning schemes.
• Mrs. Knollys: A patient, steadfast Englishwoman whose entire adult life is defined by a single moment of loss, spending forty-five years waiting for her husband's body to emerge from a glacier.
• Silvia: A quiet, frightened Italian girl torn between her love for Claudio and her family's harsh demands, paralyzed by her fear of her brother's violent nature.
• Matteo: Silvia's domineering, ruthless brother who treats family members as property to be controlled and shows no hesitation in enforcing his will.

In Its Own Voice

"To make love to a young lady with a ghost sitting on the railing near by, and that ghost the apparition of a much-dreaded uncle, the very idea of whom in such a position and at such a time made me tremble, was a difficult, if not an impossible, thing to do..."

The narrator of "The Transferred Ghost" struggles to navigate romance under the watchful eye of a misplaced spirit.

"There before her was Charles Knollys! The face seemed hardly pale; and there was the same faint smile--a smile like her memory of it, five and forty years gone by."

An elderly Mrs. Knollys finally beholds her young bridegroom, untouched by time within the glacier.

"Where knives are sharp and people mind their own business, or express their opinions only by a shrug of the shoulders and a grimace, how is a poor boy, how is even a rich man or a rich woman, to come at the truth in such a case?"

The tragic climax of Silvia's story leaves a grieving lover without answers or recourse in a closed society.

What It's Really About

This volume explores the terrifying thinness of the line between control and delusion. Across its varied landscapes, characters attempt to impose their will—through scientific logic, romantic devotion, legal manipulation, or familial authority—only to discover that reality resists their demands. The stories ask whether human connection can survive the dark impulses of ambition and control. Science, far from liberating its practitioners, becomes a avenue for madness when divorced from human empathy. Love, too, is repeatedly tested by the cold passage of time, the threat of violence, or simple human cowardice. Underneath the polite conversations and grand scenery lies a persistent questioning of how much control anyone truly has over their own fate.

Why Read It Today

This collection offers an incredible snapshot of nineteenth-century American fiction at its most varied and inventive. The prose is clean, direct, and rich with period detail, moving comfortably from witty social comedy to atmospheric Gothic dread. Readers who enjoy rich character work and clever plot twists will find much to admire in these forgotten gems.

The book is not without its difficulties: modern readers must navigate the deliberate, unhurried pacing of nineteenth-century storytelling, complete with detailed legal debates, archaic medical terms, and romantic melodrama. Some stories feature harsh depictions of patriarchal control and period attitudes regarding social class and gender roles that reflect their era's limits. Yet these friction points only serve to make the reading experience more fascinating. What stays with you is the striking image of a woman growing old beside a frozen, youthful husband, or the eerie realization that a brilliant scientific mind is operating entirely within the walls of an asylum. It is a collection that rewards careful, quiet reading.