The writings of Frank R. Stockton are excellent representatives of the
man himself. How closely allied writer and writings are is very well
stated by Hamilton W. Mabie in the _Book-Buyer_ for June, 1902, "His
talk had much of the quality of his writing; it was full of quaint
conceits, whimsicalities, impossible suggestions offered with perfect
gravity. He was always perfectly natural; he never attempted to live up
to his part; in talk, at least, he never forced the note. His attitude
toward himself was slightly tinged with humor, and he knew how to foil
easily and pleasantly too great a pressure of praise."
His tales are extravagantly impossible but extremely realistic in
effect, filled with humorous situations and singular plots, and peopled
with eccentric characters that afford amusement on every page. His most
successful writing is done when he explains contrivances upon which his
story depends. He is an original and inventive expert juggler who moves
with careless ease to the most effective ends. His characters are
little more than pieces of mechanism that act when he pulls the string.
They have little emotion and even in their love-making they show their
emotion mostly for the sake of the reader's amusement. His negro
characters are exceptions to his general treatment and are true to
life. He inveigles the reader into believing the most extravagant
incidents by having a reliable witness narrate them.
Stockton never stoops to the burlesque, cynic, or vulgar phases of life
to secure amusement. He is grotesque and droll in his manner, and above
all always restrained. His literary life is full of sprites and gnomes
that frolic before young children and once before mature people. _The
Griffin and the Minor Canon_ is a beautiful fairy story lifted from
childhood's thought and diction into a mature realm. His humor is plain
and simple, cool and keenly calculating. A friendly critic has said of
one of his stories, "With a gentle, ceaseless murmur of amusement, and
a flickering twinkle of smiles, the story moves steadily on in the calm
triumph of its assured and unassailable absurdity, to its logical and
indisputable impossibility." This observation is very largely true of
all his stories.