Gardiner-Scott is an associate professor of English at Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts. Her areas of special academic Interest include fantasy and science fiction, the British novel, gothic and medieval literature, and women's fiction. In the following essay, she provides a general introduction to "The Lady, or the Tiger?"

When critics today think of American humorists of the nineteenth century, Mark Twain readily comes to mind. But one of his prolific contemporaries was Frank R. Stockton, a writer of fairy tales, children's books, science fictlon, and whimsIcal stories, such as the one which is Ins most famous, "The Lady, or the Tiger?" In an age in which realism, romantlcism, naturalism, and other literary styles were emerging in Western literature, he refused to be categorized in any particular literary group, leadmg to Ins reputation as a maverick writer. He consideredhimselfprimarily a humor writer, but believed, as he...