River Stories

From the ancient Nile to the mighty Amazon, from the sacred Ganges to the rolling Mississippi--the rivers of the world wind through this collection of stories from the world''s great writers. River gods and nymphs frolic in Ovid''s mythic telling. The trickster Coyote plies the waters in tales from the Cherokee and Blackfeet. A set of stone steps at the shore of the Ganges bears witness to heartbreak in Rabindranath Tagore''s "River Stairs," and Mark Twain floats his rebellious heroes on a raft to freedom. Kenneth Grahame''s Rat and Mole explore their local waterway in a rowboat, and Ernest Hemingway''s war-weary veteran finds peace while catching trout. From Everyman''s Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases, with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.

List of contents

FREEDOM ON THE WATER
Mark Twain, “It’s Lovely to Live on a Raft” (from Huckleberry Finn, 1885)
Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The Mother’s Struggle” (from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852)
Kunikida Doppo, “River Mist” (1898)
Ernest Hemingway, “Big Two-Hearted River” (1925)
E. M. Forster, “The Road from Colonus” (1904)
Alice Munro, “The Found Boat” (1974)

DRAMA AND DANGER
Guy De Maupassant, “On the Water” (1876)
Traditional Mexican, “La Llorona”
Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890)
Elizabeth Jane Howard, ‘Three Miles Up” (1951)
Cormac McCarthy, ‘The Dark Waters” (1965)
Oleksander Dobzhansky, “Easter Flood” (1948)

LOVE AND LOSS
Zora Neale Hurston, “Magnolia Flower” (1925)
Rabindranath Tagore, “The River Stairs” (1884)
Erskine Caldwell, “Warm River” (1932)
Huynh Quang Nhuong, “So Close” (1982)
Salwa Elhamamsy, “By the Nile” (2023)
Lesley Nneka Arimah, “What Is a Volcano?” (2017)

MYSTIC RIVERS
Ovid, “Arethusa” (8 CE)
Tao Yuanming, “Peach Blossom Spring” (421 CE) 263
Traditional Kalapuya, “Coyote Frees Water from the Frog People”
Kenneth Grahame, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” (from The Wind in the Willows, 1908)
Herman Hesse, “The Ferryman” (1922)
Tony Birch, “Th e Ghost River” (2013)
Zadie Smith, “The Lazy River” (2017)
Elif Shafak, “Zaleekhah” (from There Are Rivers in the Sky, 2024)

About the author

HENRY HUGHES is a poet, essayist, and professor of English at Western Oregon University. Winner of the Oregon Book Award, he is also the editor of the Everyman's Library collections Fishing Stories, River Poems, and The Art of Angling: Poems about Fishing.

Summary

From the ancient Nile to the sacred Ganges and from the venerable Thames to the mighty Mississippi—the rivers of the world wind through this collection of stories from the world's great writers.

River gods and nymphs frolic in Ovid's mythic telling. The trickster Coyote reroutes a river in a Native American tale. A set of stone steps at the shore of the Ganges bears witness to heartbreak in Rabindranath Tagore's "The River Stairs," and Mark Twain floats his rebellious heroes on a raft to freedom. Kenneth Grahame's Rat and Mole explore their local waterway in a rowboat, and Ernest Hemingway's war-weary veteran finds peace while catching trout.

From The Wind in the Willows to Huckleberry Finn, from Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River" to Alice Munro's "The Found Boat" and Zadie Smith's "The Lazy River," the tales collected here—by such luminaries as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Guy de Maupassant, E. M. Forster, Hermann Hesse, Zora Neale Hurston, Cormac McCarthy, Elif Shafak, and many more—set moving scenes against the backdrop of moving waters, in testament to the enduring power of rivers in the human imagination.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases, with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.

Product details

• Authors: Henry Hughes
• Publisher: Everyman s Library PRH USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 13.05.2025
• EAN: 9798217007172
• ISBN: 9798217007172
• No. of pages: 352
• Dimensions: 122 mm x 189 mm x 25 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature