One of a handful of anthologies edited and introduced by Random House editor and co-founder Bennett Cerf. Co-edited by Henry C. Moriarty.

Contents:

• The Pardoner's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer
• The Marvellous Adventure of the Sword by Sir Thomas Malory
• The Apparition of Mrs. Veal by Daniel Defoe
• The Vision of Mirza by Joseph Addison
• Asem, an Eastern Tale by Oliver Goldsmith
• The Two Drovers by Sir Walter Scott
• The Iron Shroud by William Mudford
• The Gridiron by Samuel Lover
• The House and the Brain by E. Bulwer-Lytton
• Con Cregan's Legacy by Charles Lever
• Rab and his Friends by John Brown
• The Half-Brothers by Elizabeth C. Gaskell
• Sultan Stork by William Makepeace Thackeray
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• Malachi's Cove by Anthony Trollope
• The Punishment of Shahpesh, the Persian, on Khipil, the Builder by George Meredith
• The Three Strangers by Thomas Hardy
• Story of a Piebald Horse by W. H. Hudson
• Sire de Malétroit's Door by Robert Louis Stevenson
• A Lodging for the Night by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Story of Dr. MacLure by John Watson (Ian MacLaren)
• Faith by R. Cunninghame Graham
• The Clerk's Quest by George Moore
• The Birthday of Infanta by Oscar Wilde
• Youth by Joseph Conrad
• The Captain of the "Ullswater" by Morley Roberts
• The Adventure of the Speckled Band by A. Conan Doyle
• The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell by Sir James Matthew Barrie
• The Babus of Nayanjore by Sir Rabindranath Tagore
• Philippa's Fox-Hunt by E. Somerville and Martin Ross
• The Mezzotint by Montague Rhodes James
• "Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat-- " by Eden Phillpotts
• The Adventure of the Kind Mr. Smith by William J. Locke
• The Roll-Call of the Reef by Sir Arthur T. Quiller-Couch
• That Brute Simmons by Arthur Morrison
• The Monkey's Paw by W. W. Jacobs
• The Doll in the Pink Silk Dress by Leonard Merrick
• The Drums of the Fore and Aft by Rudyard Kipling
• The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling
• Red Hanrahan by William Butler Yeats
• The Country of the Blind by H. G. Wells
• Mary with the High Hand by Arnold Bennett
• The Apple-Tree by John Galsworthy
• Action by C. E. Montague
• The Valley of the Beasts by Algernon Blackwood
• Mrs. Packletide's Tiger by Saki
• The Happy Hypocrite by Max Beerbohm
• The Derelict by H. M. Tomlinson
• Red by W. Somerset Maugham
• The Hammer of God by G. K. Chesterton
• The Kings of Orion by John Buchan
• The Stranger in the Village by Sir Philip Gibbs
• The Higgler by A. E. Coppard
• The Western Islands by John Masefield
• The Sword of Welleran by Lord Dunsany
• The Celestial Omnibus by E. M. Forster
• The Log of the "Evening Star" by Alfred Noyes
• Jeeves and the Song of Songs by P. G. Wodehouse
• Three Lovers Who Lost by James Stephens
• The Dead by James Joyce
• Purple and Fine Linen by May Edginton
• Mr. Oddy by Sir Hugh Walpole
• A Busman's Holiday by Francis Brett Young
• A Sleeping Draft by Weston Martyr
• The Prussian Officer by D. H. Lawrence
• Fish Are Such Liars by Roland Pertwee
• A Source of Irritation by Stacy Aumonier
• The Chink and the Child by Thomas Burke
• Life of Ma Parker by Katherine Mansfield
• A Day in a Woman's Life by Sheila Kaye-Smith
• Rivers of Damascus by Donn Byrne
• The Gioconda Smile by Aldous Huxley
• The Cavalier of the Streets by Michael Arlen
• The Old Hunter by Liam O'Flaherty
• The White Cottage by L. A. G. Strong
• The Trapper's Mates by Henry Williamson
• The Forty-Third Division by Ralph Bates
• The Eyes by Thomas Owen Beachcroft
• The Etting Scotchman by Anonymous
• Bella Fleace Gave a Party by Evelyn Waugh