The best short stories of 1918, and the yearbook of the American short story

A twinkle crept into Orrington’s usually expressionless eyes. “I must apologize to you, Reynolds, or perhaps to your father, for so mistaking the circumstances of your youth. Yo...

“You may believe it or not, as you please, Reynolds, but I’m incapable of seizing anything.” Orrington paused to direct the waiter, but went on after a moment, with a teacup in...

I wanted her to protest, but she did not. She got up calmly and went with him out onto the rock spit. I was between them and the mainland. They could not go away by river. No ha...

She had been visiting friends, he said, in Dubuque, when Corey came back, he believed, from the Balkan War, in the spring of 1913. Pretty quick work they made of it, too. In Aug...

“Here’s to the wives we loved in the days before War came upon us. Here’s to the promises they made us—to be ours until death came between us. Here’s to the suffering they have...

By the end of the week the smell of food held no temptations for Fernet. Minetti stopped cooking. And when a glass of water was drawn from the faucet Fernet had difficulty in fo...

“Remember,” Hazelton urged Raoul, “the wonderful Mongolian legend of the father and son who loved the same woman, and whom for their honor they threw over a cliff! That’s the id...

Then one night Vinton had come down from Boston on a late afternoon train. He had been lunching at one of the clubs with friends who had listed him to speak at two or three hous...

“Yes. Everything’s come. And you’d better come yourself at five o’clock. I know she’s just forgotten—perhaps your invitation got lost like Mrs. Purcell’s. She only got hers an h...

“‘You have not offended me, dear friend,’ she said. ‘It is only that I am made miserable by this subject. My relative who is employed in the railway caught this bird a few days...

This is the story, to be believed, or not, as you like. They do as they like about it in Jersey. But old Mrs. Buchan believes that with each American troop-ship there will sail...

Jasper walked to the railroad station. It was ten minutes of one. Jasper did not ask the night operator about the next train into Vernon. Apparently he knew that there was a tra...

As John walked to the Soul Hope meeting that evening dozens of people murmured that it was his brother who had robbed the Lumber National Bank. His head was bowed with the shame...

All this—in fact, everything about her—took George Norton by storm when he turned up, fresh from a freshwater university farther west, to fill the Slocum professorship. He found...

He seemed relieved then, and began at once—he had saved a surprising amount of strength—to speak. He knew Burke planned to go to New York, and he wanted him to deliver some pape...

Four of us, strangers to one another, had settled in the smoking compartment at the beginning of the journey from Chicago to New York, and as we had been on our way nearly an ho...

The baby was buried the next day. It was a pathetic little funeral, just a prayer or two by Doctor Dodd of the Methodist Church, and then Blake Whipple, the undertaker, took car...

“Oh, there is no doubt of it, he is quite mad!” said Fernet to himself. Then aloud: “Yes, I have been wanting to talk to you more about this. Take a seat and I shall make some c...

“We’ve got to make room.” Doctor Lake, sweating, dog-tired, swaying on his feet from nine unbroken hours at the operating-table, took command. “Take my hut; it’ll hold four at a...

The two women ambled on, their chatter blurring with distance. Standing behind the alders Jasper rubbed the palm of one hand with the fingers of the other. The palm was dry with...

What Hazelton’s friends called his second manner had for a mother despair, and for a father irony, and for a godmother necessity. It leaped into his mind full-grown, charged wit...

It was a place where men went who liked to talk of curious things. It was not, of course, advertised as that; there was no sign to the public saying as much. Indeed, the only si...

To-day, as we drove on, I looked back on the summer. As a rule, our months at the shore are compact of slow and tranquil days, but this season had fled past like a demented movi...

“Sure,” he said. “You are free. Why not? I am an American. Have a drink?” And they sealed the bargain in a tumbler of Chinese rice whisky, cut with Bourbon, and flavored with an...

Then, after a final request, still protesting, he entered as he was bidden. The grocer followed, walked to the east side of the store and indicated the west side to his visitor...

“Well, I should think so.” Mrs. Capron hawked her superior virtue. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Frenzy. Nice work indeed you’ve been doin’ with them hands! Murderin’ and slay...

Copyright, 1918, by The Frank A. Munsey Company, Harper & Brothers, The Story-Press Corporation, Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc., The Curtis Publishing Company, The Atlantic Monthly...

1. Bierce. Can Such Things Be? Boni & Liveright. 2. Bierce. In the Midst of Life. Boni & Liveright. 3. Brown. The Flying Teuton. Macmillan. 4. Burt. John O’May. Scribner. 5. Her...

*HOUGH, EMERSON.* Born at Newton, Ia., June 28, 1857. High school education at Newton, and graduated from State University of Iowa, 1880. Practised law in New Mexico in 1882. Ca...

39. _His Escape_, by _Will Payne_ (Saturday Evening Post). I regard this as the best newspaper story published in America since “The Stolen Story.” It has quick dramatic action,...

“But the message had gotten over! They could charge—they must—and the cyanide would erase the intolerable memory forever! I looked at those nearest and saw they would go through...

_The sixty short stories published in the American magazines between January and October, 1918, which I shall discuss in this article are chosen from a larger group of about one...

_The Scarecrow and Other Stories_, by _G. Ranger Wormser_ (E. P. Dutton & Company). These stories by Miss Wormser are the most interesting short story discovery of the year. The...

_Kline, Burton._ (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) ***In the Open Code. Strat. J. Feb. (21.) **Lost Lenore. Strat. J. July-Aug. (3:36.) *Mrs. Carnes Adjusts Herself to the...

_Driggs, Laurence la Tourette._ (_See 1917._) Arnold’s Escape to America. Outl. Feb. 20. (118:288.) **Her First Flight. Outl. Aug. 14. (119:588.) Reunion in the Sky. Outl. Feb....

_Adv._ ..........Adventure _Ain._ ..........Ainslee’s Magazine _All._ ..........All-Story Weekly _Am._ ...........American Magazine _Am. Heb._ ......American Hebrew _Am. W. J. N...

_Roche, Arthur Somers._ (1883- .) (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._) Empty Sleeve. Col. March 30. (15.) Gun-Metal Case. Col. March 2. (8.) “Higher Up.” McC. May. (11.) Interrupted Te...

_Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins._ (1862- .) Both Cheeks. Freeman. 215. Flowering Bush. Freeman. 101. Gala Dress. Williams. 117. Liar. Freeman. 153. Old Man of the Field. Freeman. 26....

_Starrett, Vincent._ Arthur Cosslett Smith. Mir. Oct. 18. (27:522.) In Praise of Sherlock Holmes. Mir. Feb. 22. (27:106.) Irritating Mr. Burgess. Mir. Oct. 11. (27:511.) James B...