The book, "A Collection of Short-Stories," originally published in 1914, contains samples from such master storytellers as Rudyard Kipling, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Robert Louis Stevenson, also Björnstjerne Björnson, Frank R. Stockton and Guy de Maupassant. Edited by Lemuel Arthur "L.A." Pittenger, a famous Indiana educator and president of Ball State University, the volume is extensively footnoted for study purposes and contains an introductory presentation on the history of the short-story, its qualities and composition, along with lists of books for reference and related readings.