Download Devil Stories (1921) an anthology Free PDF book (Collection of Short Stories about The Devil)













Of all the myths which have come down to us from the East, and of all the creations of Western fancy and belief, the Personality of Evil has had the strongest attraction for the mind of man. The Devil is the great- est enigma that has ever confronted the human intelligence. So large a place has Satan taken in our imagination, and we might also say in our heart, that his expulsion therefrom, no matter what philosophy may teach us, must forever remain an impossibility.As a character in imaginative literature, Lucifer has not his equal in heaven above or on the earth beneath. In contrast to the idea of Good, which is the more exalted in proportion to its freedom from anthropomorphism, the idea of Evil owes to the presence of this element its chief value as a poetic theme. The discrowned archangel may have been inferior to St. Michael in military tactics, but he certainly is his superior in matters literary. The fair angels — all frankness and goodness — are beyond our comprehension, but the fallen angels, with all their faults and sufferings, are kin to us.The devil in a nunnery, by F.O. Mann.--Belphagor; or, The marriage of the devil, by N. Machiavelli.--The devil and Tom Walker, by W. Irving.--From the memoirs of Satan, by W. Hauff.--St. John's eve, by N.V. Gógol; tr. by Isabel F. Hapgood.--The devil's wager, by W.M. Thackeray.--The painter's bargain, by W.M. Thackeray.--Bon-Bon, by E.A. Poe.--The printer's devil, anonymous.--The devil's mother-in-law, by F. Caballero; tr. by J.H. Ingram.--The generous gambler, by C.P. Baudelaire; tr. by A. Symons.--The three low masses, by A. Daudet; tr. by R. Routledge.--Devil-puzzlers, by F.B. Perkins.--The devil's round, by C. Deulin; tr. by Isabel Bruce.--The legend of Mont St.-Michel, by G. de Maupassant.--The demon pope, by R. Garnett.--Madam Lucifer, by R. Garnett.--Lucifer, by A. France; tr. by A. Allinson.--The devil, by M. Górky; tr. by L. Wiener.--The devil and the old man, by J. Masefield