The American imagination at work : tall tales and folk tales

Clough, Ben C. (Ben Crocker) 1888-1975 (Author).

Record details

Physical Description: print
xix, 707 pages ; 25 cm
Edition: [First edition].
Publisher: New York : A. A. Knopf, 1947.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Bibliography: p. 701-707.

Formatted Contents Note:

American background and American myth -- The corpse and the beaver hat / Ben C. Clough -- The Wessagusset hanging / Charles Francis Adams -- Even Adamses err / Allan Nevins -- Goffe, Whalley, or the devil / John Warner Barber -- The angel of Hadley / John Warner Barber -- Frog Army / Rev. Samuel Peters -- The line that Travis drew / J. Frank Dobie -- Skipper Ireson's ride / Edwin M. Bacon -- Thomas Newell's enormous gator / Herbert Halpert -- Slick MacQuoid slings a few / Richard M Dorson -- Mark Twain improves a yarn / Mark twain -- The Barton sisters tell of Lorenzo Dow / G.Y. Loveridge -- Adirondack anecdotes / Edith Cutting -- John Darling / Harold Thompson -- Ali Baba in New York State / Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner -- Dressing the story up -- God's revenge against murder / Ben C. Clough -- Ann Saunder's biter cup / Ben C. Clough -- Mansion of horror / Marion's dinner party / Annonymous -- Withcraft ans other satanic mischief -- Satan at Harvard / Samuel Eliot Morrison -- Martha Carrier / Cotton Mather -- Sop Doll! / Richard Chase -- Lithobolia / Richard Chambelayne -- More stone throwing devils / Charles Skinner and John Warner Barber -- Jonathon Moulton and the devil / Samual Adams Drake -- Barney Oxman and the devil -- The devil and Daniel Webster / Stephen Vincent Benet -- The Jersey devil / Henry Charlton Beck -- Treasure trove -- Sea-feather and Sea treasure / Cotton Mather -- Sutliff's search / John Warner Barber -- If I could find Davis Mountain / Walter Noble Burns -- Who will be next / Horace Bell -- Olmstead vs. Astor / Frederick Law Olmestead -- Twelve fathom NE / Edward Rose Snow -- Special Providences and strange deliverances -- Cannibals smallpox more supplies -- God jogs the Puritan elbow -- Sea deliverences and divine warnings / Cotton MAther -- Mantissa / Cotton Mather -- Three warnings / Increase Mather -- God sends rats / Captain John Smith -- The judgments of God / Thomas Robinson Hazard -- A divine Interposition -- A life saved / Hans Zinsser -- Wound and unwound / G. Ezra Dane -- Wonders of nature -- An horrid snow / Cotton Mather -- Ain't seen no water / Zora Neale Hurston -- The lightening icon / William Byrd -- Remarkables about thunder and lightening / Increase mather -- Oklahoma rain / Stanley Versail -- Won't stay in sich a country / John Duval -- Something considerable and awful / John Warner Barber -- Hoopsnakes pro / W. C. Bryant -- Hoopsnakes con with some other elements / Edwin Way Teale -- Deacon Nauhaught's dilemma / John Warner Barber -- Thomas Benton's rattlesnake story / Thomas Hart Benton -- Rattlesnake religion / Keith Kerman -- Big as a barrel / Karl A. Bickel -- Hoe-handle / Acorn -- Not weird but puzzlin / Carl Carmer -- Supposed to be a serpent / John Warner Barber -- Tarpoon / Karl A. Bickel -- Sharks / Charles Edward Russell -- Narragansett fishing / Thomas Robinson Hazard -- Arkansas fishing / Marion Hughes -- The saucer back halibut / Lowell Thomas -- Sea horses at drill / John Dunton -- The perch motor / J.C. Allen -- A yankee among the mermaids -- Pesky critters -- Hoppers and history / Everett Dick -- Conjuring rats / William Wells Newell -- Aunt Weed's rat letter / Cornelius Weygandt -- The birds and the bees -- Jim Baker's blueday yarn / Mark Twain -- Ab Yancey's bee-hunt / Vance Rudolph -- Unnatural history -- The bears jubilee -- The squirrel fleet / N. E. Jones -- Memoirs of the stable / H.L. Mencken -- No ordinary bull / John Gould -- The swan valley monster / Idaho Lore -- Powerful changed / Zora Neale Hurston -- Uncle Heber's flytrap / WIlliam Wilson -- The wonderful tar baby story / Joel Chandler Harris -- Arkansas hogs / James R. Masterson and Marion Hughes -- Adirondack fauna / Harold W. Thompson -- The guyascutus -- Good yarns grow bigger -- How legends grow -- On the concho / Fannie E. Ratchford -- The Mary Celeste in fiction-and in fact / George S. Bryan -- The captive is frozen / John Gyles -- Philip Ashton's misery / Philip Ashton -- Twice kidnapped, or Fanny Noble among the Indians / John Kelly -- Captain Carver's narrative / Jonathon Carver -- Ethan Allen's captivity / Ethan Allen -- kidnapping the kaiser / T.H. Alexander -- Santa in Central Park / Emile Gauvreau -- A ride for the bride / Charles Skinner -- Brady's leap / D.M. Kelsey -- Survival / John Hersey -- Thrilling adventure -- Slitly stove / William Tripp -- Queer fare / John Spears -- Sailing blind / Robert Elton Berry -- Saving the Sharon / Ben C. CLough -- Western Liars / Frank Dobie -- Maine liars / John Gould -- Old man Montgomery / Dane Coolidge -- At the west -- Out west -- Mississippi -- The toughest game cock on record -- Playing possum / Harnett T. Kane -- I wish I could tell a lie -- The fabulous Lester Green / Mollie Cullen -- The typographical howitzer -- The electric bulldog / H.L. Lewis -- The albiono cow / Tom Cawley -- The cry-baby shark / Edwin R. Chambers -- Strange items from Skiff's island / Joseph Chase Allen -- Paris interlude / Edgar Calmer -- Belle of Indiana / Stewart Holbrook -- The middle man / Ben C. Clough -- In a world of chances / Henry Beetle Hough -- Something original / Elizabeth Drexel Lehr -- Room for one mor / Bennet Cerf -- We didn't go back / Jesse James Bennett -- Peter Rugg / William Austin -- Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving -- I have been murdered / John Warner Barber -- Ask me no questions / Ida Clyde Clarke -- Fiddler's dram / James R. Aswell -- He floated in / Bennet Cerf -- Who fell from aloft -- The haunted chair / Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner -- The phantom doe / Rowland E. Robinson -- The Cebterville ghost / Copper Camp -- They have yarns / Carl Sandburg -- I can lick a steamboat / George P. Burnham -- Driving a parson ashore / Francis Durivage -- What did you holler / Ralph Ingersoll -- The seabees / Bull Davidson -- Terbaccer chawer / Mark Whalon -- Goin'good / Stetson Kennedy -- The wildest man of the west / Stewart Holbrook -- lewie the horse / Morton Thompson -- The cow doctor -- Harold Peavey's fast cow / George Cronyn -- Trampas and the Virginian / Owen Wister -- The widow's cruise / Frank Stockton -- You could look it up / James Thurber -- Where Joe Merriwether went to / C.A.P. -- Pere Allouez meets idols and absurdities / Louise Phelps Kellogg -- Bartram's subtle greedy alligator / William Barton -- Through the forest through Murdering town / Ben C. Clough -- Audobon meets Daniel Boone / John James Audobon -- David Crockett's double bullseye / David Crockett -- David Crockett meets a bear / David Crockett -- Mike Hooters bear story / Thomas Haliburton / Mike Fink meets David Crockett -- Mike Fink in a tight place -- Indians / Kit Carson -- Routing the apaches / Owen Wister -- Johnny Appleseed / Harlan Hatcher / Roy Bean / Ben C. Clough -- Roy Bean - coroner / C.L. Sonnichsen -- Daddy mention / Stetson Kennedy -- Big John the conqueror / Stetson Kennedy -- Uncle Monday / Stetson Kennedy -- Halliday Witherspoon / Winifred Scott -- Liverpool Jarge: must of et something / Halliday Witherspoon -- Pecos Bill and the willful coyote / William C. White -- Paul Bunyan and Kemp Morgan / J.H. Plenn -- Thunder bay / James Stevens -- Paul's popcorn / Walter Blair -- The he-man country / James Stevens -- Paul at home / W.B. Laughead -- Shepard Tom Hazard / Thomas Robinson Hazard -- Under the influence / Arthur Train -- The fastest funeral on record / Francis Durivage and George P. Burnham -- Sauerkraut downs / Frederick Graham -- Feather boa / Samuel Hopkins Adams -- Nantucket round trip / Eleanor Early -- Livingston round trip / John A. Lomax -- Prosper Leffingwell / John Warner Barber -- Ruff sam -- Little neck Tom / Thomas Robinson Hazard -- John Bass / Richard Dorson -- Mr. L. -- Ab yancey's squirel hunt / Vance Randolph -- How Rubenstein played the Pianner / George Bagby -- Jimmy Butler and the owl / Frank Fenno -- American promotion in England / Harry Reichenbach -- The nature man / Richard Boyer -- The virgin of Stamboul / Harry Reichenbach -- Prince Zerdecheno / Morris Markey and John Bull -- The milkmaid / Jesse james benton -- The awl / Emelyn Elizabeth Gardner -- The magic turtle / Hans Zinsser -- Byron Keating / Time -- Minnie and Susan / Samuel Hopkins Adams -- Easy go / Dane -- Satchel eye-dyer / John Gould -- Frozen words / Lowell Thomas -- Bundle of troubles / Harry Hobson -- Emily's adventures in New York / Russell Maloney -- The pearl necklace / Bennet Cerf -- Don't keep em / Henry Beetle Hough -- The vanishing hotel room / Ben C. Clough -- The vanishing lemon pie / George Marion.