"The Devil and Daniel Webster" is a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét. This retelling of the classic German Faust tale is based on the short story "The Devil and Tom Walker", written by Washington Irving. Benet's version of the story centers on a New Hampshire farmer who sells his soul to the Devil and is defended by Daniel Webster, a fictional version of the famous lawyer and orator.
The story first appeared in the The Saturday Evening Post in 1936 and was later published in book form by Farrar & Rinehart in 1937. That same year, it won the 1937 O. Henry Award. The author would also adapt it in 1938 into a folk opera with music by Douglas Stuart Moore, a fellow alumnus of Yale University, member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and winner of a Pulitzer Prize. Benét also worked on the screenplay adaptation for the 1941 RKO Pictures film.
Read more about The Devil And Daniel Webster: Plot, Film Adaptations, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words devil and/or daniel:
“What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the
tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored
taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous
to demand the time of the day.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“And who in time knowes whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gaine of our best glorie shal be sent,
T’inrich unknowing Nations with our stores?
What worlds in th’yet unformed Occident
May come refin’d with th’accents that are ours?”
—Samuel Daniel (c. 1562–1619)