Summary
Summary of Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools
Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 7 h 10 min5 h 40 min fast, 8 h 30 min slow
- Length
- 102,200 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Key ideas
Key idea 1
Stories begin with a living voice
Uncle Remus tells a little boy about Simon, a suitor ordered to clear six acres in a single day. Susanna helps him with seven white pebbles and an ax that cuts when the pebbles are shaken. The boy interrupts, and the storyteller answers with sly good humor.
This exchange shows what written stories inherit from tales spoken aloud. Wonders matter, but so does the voice sharing them. As the book moves toward written tales with morals and mysteries, that sense of someone telling us a story remains.
Key idea 2
Small actions carry a lesson
Hapeda, the proud hunter in The Ten Trails, keeps abandoning one trail for another whenever the pursuit becomes difficult.
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Key idea 3
Mystery grows through what stays hidden
In Wood-Ladies, Joan enters the dark undergrowth to prove she is not afraid.
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Key idea 4
War becomes personal through one life
A wounded lieutenant sees a fever ship as a prison and mistakes the steward who saves him for a cruel keeper.
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Key idea 5
Animals reveal familiar human feelings
Moti Guj misses Deesa, the mahout who mistreats him and then weeps over him.
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Key idea 6
A puzzle offers different pleasures
Jabez Wilson earns money copying the Encyclopaedia Britannica for a league of red-headed men.
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Key idea 7
Another person's gaze opens new possibilities
Jimmy Valentine knows how to open safes, and Detective Ben Price recognizes his work.
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Key idea 8
Knowledge gives courage a practical shape
William MacLure refuses to accept a London doctor's judgment that Saunders has only hours to live.
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Key idea 9
Different stories reveal different kinds of craft
The collection moves through folklore, fable, war, animals, comedy, puzzles and a doctor's struggle.
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Go deeper: the whole of Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools
About 7 h 20 min to read.Start freeWho it’s for
This book suits readers who like variety: folk tales, ghost stories, detective puzzles, war scenes and gentle comedy. It is made for students, teachers and anyone who enjoys talking over how a story was built.
What this book is
Picture a bride and groom running through the dark, tossing a coat, an egg, a meal sack and a skillet behind them to slow a witch who happens to be her father. That is the first story in this book, told by old Uncle Remus to a little boy one night.
Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools was gathered by the editor Frederick Houk Law. It holds twenty-two tales by writers such as Kipling, Tolstoy, Doyle, O. Henry and Jack London. Together they show how the short story grew from spoken tales into the sharp, shaped form we know today.
In this summary
- 1Stories begin with a living voiceFree
- 2Small actions carry a lesson
- 3Mystery grows through what stays hidden
- 4War becomes personal through one life
- 5Animals reveal familiar human feelings
- 6A puzzle offers different pleasures
- 7Another person's gaze opens new possibilities
- 8Knowledge gives courage a practical shape
- 9Different stories reveal different kinds of craft
The oldest tales began as spoken wonders
The book opens with three stories that show how storytelling grew from voice to page. The editor explains that the earliest tales were told aloud to small groups and grew bigger with every telling.
In The Adventures of Simon and Susanna, Uncle Remus tells a little boy about a girl whose father sets her suitor an impossible task. Simon must clear six acres in a single day. Susanna gives him seven white pebbles and an ax that cuts whenever the pebbles are shaken. The boy keeps interrupting, and Uncle Remus answers with sly good humor.
The Crow Child moves to a written tale with a moral. Cora, nearly sixteen, minds her small brother Ruky in a cottage by a dark forest. On a bad-tempered night she says something cruel, and strange things begin. In The Soul of the Great Bell, an emperor demands a bell whose voice carries for one hundred li, and the metals refuse to blend.
The oldest stories explain the world through a voice, and the short story still carries that voice.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Check yourself
How do the stories about the unseen create their effects?
Right. “The editor says such stories work by suggestion.”Not quite. “The editor says such stories work by suggestion.”
What happens to Jimmy Valentine after he becomes Ralph D. Spencer?
Right. “He becomes Ralph D. Spencer, opens a shoe store and wins the town's respect.”Not quite. “He becomes Ralph D. Spencer, opens a shoe store and wins the town's respect.”
What connects the heroes of A Fight with Death and Her First Horse Show?
Right. “Each hero knows one thing deeply and trusts it.”Not quite. “Each hero knows one thing deeply and trusts it.”
Go deeper: the whole of Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools
About 7 h 20 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 102,200 words
- Reading timeAbout 7 h 10 min
Questions about Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools
Who wrote the stories in Modern Short Stories?
The editor is Frederick Houk Law, but the tales have many authors, including Joel Chandler Harris, Mary Mapes Dodge, Lafcadio Hearn, Jack London, A. Conan Doyle and Ruth McEnery Stuart.
Is Modern Short Stories easy to read?
Each tale is short enough to read in one sitting, with clear plots, lively dialogue and plenty of humor. A concluding Critical Comment section discusses story forms, authors and techniques, followed by questions for class use.
What kinds of stories does Modern Short Stories include?
It includes folk tales, a fable, an allegory, ghost stories, war sketches, animal stories, gentle comedy, science stories and detective puzzles, so readers can compare many ways of telling a story.
Cite this edition
Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/modern-short-stories-a-book-for-high-schools.
Modern short stories: A book for high schools. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/modern-short-stories-a-book-for-high-schools
Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/modern-short-stories-a-book-for-high-schools.
@book{anonymous2026modern,
title = {Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/modern-short-stories-a-book-for-high-schools}
}
Free for 3 months
Get the full summary of Modern Short Stories: A Book for High Schools, free
- 200,000+ classics as eBooks, audiobooks and 15-minute summaries, and print and large print at cost
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