Part 31

_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. They are subtle studies in unfamiliar regions of the spirit, and their vivid imaginative quality is not unlike that of Algernon Blackwood, though Miss Wormser’s style is somewhat more self-conscious. I believe that this volume heralds a remarkable future.

II. _English and Irish Authors_

_The Tideway_, by “_John Ayscough_” (Benziger Brothers). This collection of stories has much of Henry Harland’s charm, with a more complete mastery of plot. These stories are, many of them, studies in social atmosphere, and if their substance is tenuous, Monsignor Bickerstaffe-Drew has made the most of it.

_Johnny Pryde_, by _J. J. Bell_ (Fleming H. Revell Company). The dry merriment of this little book is infectious, and makes it a worthy successor to the best of Wee Macgreegor’s earlier adventures.

_The Empty House_, _John Silence_, _The Listener_, and _The Lost Valley_, by _Algernon Blackwood_ (E. P. Dutton & Company). The present reprint of four of Algernon Blackwood’s earlier collections of short stories gives me the opportunity to call attention to four books for which I care more personally than for the short stories of any other English writer. No contemporary has continued the magic tradition of Keats and Coleridge more successfully than Mr. Blackwood, particularly in “The Listener” and “The Lost Valley.” These two books at least will last longer than any other volume of short stories by an English or American writer published this year.

_The Watcher by the Threshold_, by _John Buchan_ (George H. Doran Company). Seven or eight years ago a remarkable book of animistic stories by a writer then unknown to me was issued in this country. It at once awakened my enthusiasm for the writer’s work, and I felt that an important new figure had come into view. But “The Moon Endureth” attracted almost no attention and has since been forgotten. Mr. Buchan has published other pleasant books since then but the present collection is the first to recapture something of the same beauty, and in recommending it cordially to the public I earnestly hope that Mr. Buchan’s publishers will find it possible to reissue “The Moon Endureth.”

_Nights in London_, by _Thomas Burke_ (Henry Holt & Company). Strictly speaking, this is not a volume of short stories, but to those who greatly admired “Limehouse Nights” last year this volume will be found to hold the same fascination of style and to make clearer the human background out of which that book flowered.

_Gentlemen at Arms_, by “_Centurion_” (Doubleday, Page & Co.). This volume stands out as a distinguished record from the host of personal experiences which the war has produced. I think it quite the best of the English collection, and a volume which the earlier Kipling might have been proud to sign. There is a poignancy about these studies which is relieved by a well-considered art.

_Under the Hermes_, by “_Richard Dehan_” (Dodd, Mead & Company). This book is written solely with the worthy object of entertaining the reader. Five or six years ago, I remember steaming down the Labrador in a decrepit little boat called, rather magnificently, the _Stella Maris_ (and fisherman’s rumor had it that Lady Morris was so honored by the christening), and my only companion for a week in the stuffy cabin was an independent fur trader on his way to his winter post near Nain. His baggage consisted of two crates of jam and two volumes by “Richard Dehan,” and I remember how we banished sleep for several nights and days by reading them to each other, and then beginning all over again. If I knew where Richard White was now, I would send him a copy of “Under the Hermes” to see if the old magic still lingered. It is a collection of good stories imaginatively told.

_Tales of War_, by _Lord Dunsany_ (Little, Brown & Company). This volume is a series of sketches and essays dealing with Lord Dunsany’s experiences in the Great War, but it contains one of his best short stories,—“The Prayer of the Men of Daleswood,”—and several fine imaginative fables.

_Five Tales_, by _John Galsworthy_ (Charles Scribner’s Sons). This collection of short stories and novelettes should be set on the book shelf beside “The Dark Flower” as one of Galsworthy’s two most signal contributions to the poetic interpretation of life. It is not too much to say that this volume takes its place in the great English line.

_The Quest of the Face_, by _Stephen Graham_ (The Macmillan Company). This volume does not represent the author at his best, but the passionate mysticism which Mr. Graham has voiced so nobly in his Russian books still flames through these pages, and there are several sketches in the volume which I should have felt sorry to have missed.

_Children of the Dear Cotswolds_, by _L. Allen Harker_ (Charles Scribner’s Sons). These quiet pastoral studies, to be fully enjoyed, should be read aloud slowly by the winter fire, and I think the reader will agree with me that they are a very delicate series of studies in place. Mrs. Harker’s readers have a freemasonry of their own to which the password is a love for England and its forgotten Cotswold places.

_The Country Air_, by _L. P. Jacks_ (Henry Holt & Company). It is my particular pride that I was one of the first to hail the remarkable qualities of Mr. Jacks’ “Wild Shepherds.” I suppose that the present volume will never be widely popular, but to those who enjoy clean human observation, a broad philosophical outlook, and an imaginative transmutation of facts, this volume will be always welcome.

_Waysiders_, by _Seumas O’Kelly_ (Frederick A. Stokes Company). As Daniel Corkery was the Irish discovery of last year, so Seumas O’Kelly is the most remarkable Irish find of the present season. These studies lack the disciplined art of Mr. Corkery, but they have the same rich imagination, deep folk spirit, and close observation which distinguished “A Munster Twilight.”

_Chronicles of Saint Tid_, by _Eden Phillpotts_ (The Macmillan Company). Mr. Phillpotts has done well to collect his magazine stories of the past ten years. As a novelist he seems to me inferior to “John Trevena,” who also deals with Dartmoor characters, but the short story with its narrow confines affords him an excellent opportunity to chronicle the whims of human nature which he has observed, and to set down simple chronicles of the countryside which have a romantic atmosphere of their own.

_Nine Tales_, by _Hugh de Sélincourt_ (Dodd, Mead & Company). To those of us who found in “A Soldier of Life” last year a novel which revealed far more of the spiritual realities of this war than “Mr. Britling Sees it Through,” these stories have been awaited with eagerness. In “The Sacrifice,” Mr. de Sélincourt has surpassed this novel for human revelation of war’s spiritual effect on England, and “Sense of Sin” is as fine a story in a different manner. The whole book is an eloquent plea for spiritual freedom based on physical health and imaginative life. An art so delicate as this is rare.

_Some Happenings_, by _Horace Annesley Vachell_ (George H. Doran Company). This is an entertaining collection of stories, by an English writer in the American manner, and ranges in breadth of interest from stories of the American West to English mystery stories and French pastorals.

III. _Translations_

_The Seven That Were Hanged_, by _Leonid Andreyev_ (Boni & Liveright). These two sombre studies in death rank among the masterpieces of modern Russian literature. “The Seven That Were Hanged” is a study in the human reactions of seven different men between their condemnation and execution. Andreyev is a master of character, relentless in his probing, inevitable in his conclusions. “The Red Laugh,” which is also included in this volume, is an unforgettable study of the horrors of warfare.

_Lazarus_, by _Leonid Andreyev_, and _The Gentleman from San Francisco_, by _Ivan Bunin_, translated by _Abraham Yarmolinsky_ (The Stratford Company). These stories, published together in one volume, are in vivid contrast. In “Lazarus” Andreyev has written one of his two great prose poems, relating how Lazarus revealed the mystery of the grave. “The Gentleman from San Francisco” has poetry too, but it is essentially an ironic study of the artificial values of commercial prosperity.

_We Others: Stories of Fate, Love, and Pity_, by _Henri Barbusse_, translated by _Fitzwater Wray_ (E. P. Dutton & Company). This collection of early stories by Monsieur Barbusse would have been important even if the author was not already known to us by “Under Fire” and “The Inferno.” It includes forty-five short stories of remarkable technique in small compass, sounding almost every note of the human comedy and tragedy with the utmost economy of means and finish of construction. It is perhaps not an accident that the first two stories are the best, but the collection is unusually even and seems sure of reasonable permanence.

_Czech Folk Tales_, selected and translated by _Josef Baudis_ (The Macmillan Company). This is probably the best volume of fairy stories published this year and should interest students of folk lore and the general reader as well as children. There is a wild poetry in these brief tales, which is well rendered in Dr. Baudis’s translation.

_Tales from Boccaccio_ (The Stratford Company). It was a happy thought of the publishers to select these seven stories at which the most puritan cannot carp, and to present them to us in such an attractive form. An old translation is used whose style faithfully mirrors that of Boccaccio.

_The Wife_ (The Macmillan Company), _The Witch_ (The Macmillan Company), and _Nine Humorous Tales_ (The Stratford Company), by _Anton Chekhov_. Two new volumes have been added this year to Mrs. Garnett’s admirable edition of Chekhov. It is now universally admitted that Chekhov ranks with Poe and de Maupassant as one of the three supreme masters of the short story. “The Wife” contains at least two of Chekhov’s masterpieces: “A Dreary Story” and “Gooseberries.” With these two stories I should rank “Gusev” and “In the Ravine.” The little book issued by the Stratford Company reprints nine of Chekhov’s less familiar stories, some of which cannot yet be obtained in English elsewhere.

_Peasant Tales of Russia_, by _V. I. Nemirovitch-Dantchenko_, translated by _Claud Field_ (Robert M. McBride & Company). These four poetic stories by one of the less known Russian masters are tragic studies of human conflict, softened by pity and a deep-rooted religious belief. They are admirably translated in a style which reflects much of the poetry of the original. “The Deserted Mine” is one of the great short stories of the world.

_White Nights, and Other Stories_, by _Fyodor Dostoevsky_, translated by _Constance Garnett_ (The Macmillan Company). These seven short stories and novelettes range over a period of more than twenty years in Dostoevsky’s career. “White Nights,” which is one of his earliest works, is a poem of young love and its effect on solitude and spiritual isolation. “A Faint Heart,” which was written seven or eight years afterwards, is a study of the will and morbid melancholy. It anticipates many of the findings of modern psychiatry. “A Little Hero,” written immediately afterwards, is a kind of autobiography, and sheds much light on Dostoevsky’s early life. But “Notes from Underground” is the masterpiece of the book, and is one of the chief clues to Dostoevsky’s own philosophy.

_Jewish Fairy Tales_, translated by _Gerald Friedlander_ (Bloch Publishing Company). This collection of eight stories, translated from the Talmud, Yalkut, and other sources, has been wisely selected to cultivate the imagination of Jewish children, but should prove of much interest to the general reader who is likely to be unfamiliar with most of these legends.

_Taras Bulba, and Other Tales_, by _Nikolai V. Gogol_ (E. P. Dutton & Company). “Taras Bulba” and five of Gogol’s best short stories are now added to Everyman’s Library. The title story is the national epic of Little Russia, and has a Homeric quality of spaciousness, dignity, and imagination which places it among the world’s great masterpieces. The other stories show Gogol in many moods, but chiefly as Russia’s greatest humorous writer.

_Creatures That Once Were Men_ (Boni & Liveright) and _Stories of the Steppe_ (The Stratford Company), by “_Maxim Gorky_.” These two volumes are in sufficient contrast to one another. The former contains five stories of life among the submerged classes of Russia, which are nobly told with simplicity, imaginative power, and sceptical philosophy. “Stories of the Steppe” contains three prose poems full of a wild gypsy poetry.

_Men in War_, by _Andreas Latsko_ (Boni & Liveright). These six realistic studies of warfare by an Austrian whose book has been suppressed in his own country are a terrific indictment of the militaristic spirit which has brought on the great conflict and continued it relentlessly for four years. It shares with Barbusse’s “Under Fire” the distinction of being one of the two masterpieces written by combatants during the last four years, and the spirit of the two books will be found to be essentially the same.

_Tales of Wartime France_, by Contemporary French Writers. Translated by _William L. McPherson_ (Dodd, Mead & Company). This anthology of thirty war stories is well selected, and shows that the war has produced many excellent French stories. One and all, they illustrate the spirit of the nation, and show an artistic reticence which contrasts favorably with the work of English and American writers.

_French Short Stories_, Edited for School Use, by _Harry C. Schweikert_ (Scott, Foresman and Company). This collection of eighteen stories for the most part follows conventional lines, but the choice is excellent and introduces the reader to several unfamiliar stories by Coppée, Bazin, Claretie, and Lemaître. The critical apparatus is competent, and the biographical notes should prove useful.

_The Spanish Fairy Book_, by _Gertrudis Segovia_, translated by _Elisabeth Vernon Quinn_ (Frederick A. Stokes Company). These eight fairy stories show much imagination, a pleasant unpretentious style, and a fine sense of form. While written for quite young children, they also possess much folk lore value.

_Serbian Fairy Tales_, translated by _Elodie L. Mijatovich_ (Robert M. McBride & Co.). I would rank this with Dr. Baudis’s “Czech Folk Tales” as one of the two best books of fairy tales published this year. Like Ispirescu’s collection of Roumanian stories it seems to bear traces of a secret animistic doctrine disclosing the mystery of change, and to have crystallized in literary form through centuries of traditional storytelling.

_Mashi, and Other Stories_, by _Sir Rabindranath Tagore_ (The Macmillan Company). Of these stories it is difficult to speak without undue enthusiasm. With admirable economy of means, Tagore has succeeded in conveying the utmost subtlety of nostalgic remembrance, and the sensuous beauty of shrouded landscape in which he projects his figures sustains profound emotional revelation without undue tightening of the literary fabric. His literary method is a strange one to us, but it might well be the beginning of a new short story tradition in which an American writer could find inspiration as fresh as the new impulse that the discovery of Japanese prints brought to Whistler and others that followed him.

_Paulownia_: Seven Stories from Contemporary Japanese Writers, translated by _Torao Taketomo_ (Duffield & Company). These stories reveal a new world to us, as significant in its way as the world of Tagore’s stories. Some of these Japanese writers have been influenced by European models, but their spirit is essentially national, and springs from an imaginative quality which it is hard for us at first to recapture. All the stories have a finished art, and so has Mr. Torao Taketomo’s translation.

_What Men Live By, and Other Stories_, by _Leo Tolstoi_, translated by _L. and A. Maude_ (The Stratford Company). This collection includes four familiar stories by Tolstoi chosen for their social doctrine. The format of the book is pleasant, and the choice of stories excellent.

VOLUMES OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED, JANUARY TO OCTOBER, 1918: AN INDEX

_NOTE._ _An asterisk before a title indicates distinction. This list includes single short stories, collections of short stories, textbooks, and a few continuous narratives based on short stories previously published in magazines._

I. _American Authors_

_Andrews, Mary Raymond Shipman._ *Her Country. Scribner.

_Anonymous._ Thompson. Houghton-Mifflin.

_Antin, Mary._ *Lie, The. Atlantic Monthly Press.

_Bacheller, Irving A._ Story of a Passion. Roycrofters.

_Bacon, Josephine Daskam._ On Our Hill. Scribner.

_Bagnold, Enid._ Diary Without Dates. Luce.

_Barton, George._ Strange Adventures of Bromley Barnes. Page.

_Bell, Robert B. H._ Laughing Bear. Shores.

_Bellegarde, Sophie de._ Russian Soldier-Peasant. Young Churchman.

_Bierce, Ambrose._ *Can Such Things Be? Boni and Liveright. *In the Midst of Life. Boni and Liveright.

_Bottome, Phyllis._ *Helen of Troy, and Rose. Century.

_Brown, Alice._ *Flying Teuton. Macmillan.

_Buffum, G. Tower._ On Two Frontiers. Lothrop, Lee and Shepard.

_Burt, Maxwell Struthers._ *John O’May, and Other Stories. Scribner.

_Butler, Ellis Parker._ Philo Gubb. Houghton-Mifflin.

_Canfield, Dorothy._ *Home Fires in France. Holt

_Chapin, Maud._ Rush-light Stories. Duffield.

_Cobb, Irvin S._ *Thunders of Silence. Doran.

_Davis, J. Frank._ Almanzar. Holt.

_Dodge, Henry Irving._ Skinner’s Big Idea. Harper. Yellow Dog. Harper.

_Dougherty, Harry Vincent._ Way of the Transgressor. Roycrofters.

_Douglas, A. Donald._ From their Galleries. Four Seas.

_Dreiser, Theodore._ *Free, and Other Stories. Boni and Liveright.

_Driggs, Laurence la Tourette._ Adventures of Arnold Adair, American Ace. Little, Brown.

_Duncan, Norman._ *Battles Royal Down North. Revell. *Harbor Tales Down North. Revell.

_Eells, Elsie Spicer._ *Tales of Giants from Brazil. Dodd, Mead.

_Ferber, Edna._ *Cheerful—By Request. Doubleday, Page.

_Foote, John Taintor._ Lucky Seven. Appleton.

_Ford, Sewell._ House of Torchy. Clode. Shorty McCabe Looks ’Em Over. Clode.

_Fox, Frances Margaret._ Seven Little Wise Men. Page.

_Frazer, Elizabeth._ Old Glory and Verdun. Duffield.

_Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins._ *Edgewater People. Harper.

_French, Joseph Lewis_, _editor_. *Great Ghost Stories. Dodd, Mead.

_Ganoe, William Addleman._ *Ruggs—R. O. T. C. Atlantic Monthly Press.

_Gatlin, Dana._ Full Measure of Devotion. Doubleday, Page.

_Giesy, J. U._ *Mimi. Harper.

_Glass, Montague._ Worrying Won’t Win. Harper.

_Goldsberry, Louise Dunham._ Ted. Badger.

_Greene, Frances Nimmo._ America First. Scribner.

_Griswold, Florence._ *Hindu Fairy Tales. Lothrop, Lee and Shepard.

_Hamby, William H._ Way of Success. Laird and Lee.

_Hardy, Thomas._ *Two Wessex Tales. Four Seas.

_Harris, Joel Chandler._ *Uncle Remus Returns. Houghton-Mifflin.

“_Hay, Timothy._” _See_ Rollins, Montgomery.

_Hearn, Lafcadio._ *Japanese Fairy Tales. Boni and Liveright. *Karma. Boni and Liveright.

“_Henry, O._” (_Sidney Porter._) *Ransom of Red Chief and Other O. Henry Stories for Boys, As Chosen by Franklin K. Mathiews. Doubleday, Page.

_Hergesheimer, Joseph._ *Gold and Iron. Knopf.

_Herring, J. L._ Saturday Night Sketches. Badger.

_Hughes, Rupert._ *Long Ever Ago. Harper.

_Hunt, Edward Eyre._ *Tales from a Famished Land. Doubleday, Page.

_Hurst, Fannie._ *Gaslight Sonatas. Harper.

_James, Henry._ *Gabrielle de Bergerac. Boni and Liveright.

_King, Basil._ *Abraham’s Bosom. Harper.

_Law, Frederick Houk_, _editor_. *Modern Short Stories. Century.

_Leonard, Orville H._ *Land Where the Sunsets Go. Sherman, French.

_Levinger, Elma Ehrlich._ Jewish Holyday Stories. Bloch. Pub. Co.

_London, Jack._ *Red One. Macmillan.

_McKenna_, “_Jawn._” Stories. Published by the Author.

_MacLean, Annie Marion._ “Cheero!” Woman’s Press.

_McSpadden, J. W._, _editor_. *Famous Ghost Stories. Crowell.

_Mahon, Shiela._ Irish Joy Stories. Mahon Press.

_Marcy, Mary Edna Tobias._ Stories of the Cave People. Kerr.

_Masson, Thomas L._, _editor_. Best Short Stories. Doubleday, Page.

_Masters, Edgar Lee._ *Toward the Gulf. Macmillan.

_Mayo, Katharine._ Standard Bearers. Houghton-Mifflin.

*_Means, E. K._ Putnam.

_Merwin, Samuel._ Henry is Twenty. Bobbs-Merrill.

_Morley, Christopher._ *Shandygaff. Doubleday, Page.

_Morse, Richard._ Fear God in Your Own Village. Holt

_Murphy, Marguerite._ Necklace of Jewels. Page.

_Neal, Robert W._, _editor_. To-day’s Short Stories Analyzed. Oxford University Press.

_O’Brien, Edward J._, _editor_. Best Short Stories of 1917. Small, Maynard.

_Orcutt, William Dana._ White Road of Mystery. Lane.

_Poe, Edgar Allan._ *Gold-Bug and Other Tales. Four Seas.

_Porter, Sidney._ _See_ “Henry, O.”

_Post, Melville Davisson._ *Uncle Abner—Master of Mysteries. Appleton.

_Pratt, A. H._ My Tussle with the Devil. I. M. Y. Co.

_Reed, Earl H._ *Sketches in Duneland. Lane.

_Reeve, Arthur B._ Panama Plot. Harper. Soul Scar. Harper.

_Rice, Alice Hegan._ *Miss Mink’s Soldier. Century.

_Richmond, Grace S._ Enlisting Wife. Doubleday, Page.

_Rideout, Henry Milner._ *Key of the Fields, and Boldero. Duffield.

_Robbins, Leo._ Mary the Merry. Stratford Co.

_Roberts, Elizabeth Judson._ Indian Stories of the Southwest. Wagner.

_Rollins, Montgomery._ (“_Timothy Hay._”) Over Here Stories. Marshall Jones Co.

_Rutledge, Archibald Hamilton._ Tom and I On the Old Plantation. Stokes.

_Sanborn, Gertrude._ Blithesome Jottings. Four Seas.

_Schnittkind, Henry T._, _editor_. *Best College Short Stories. Stratford Co.

_Shepherd, William Gunn._ *Scar That Tripled. Harper.

_Skinner, Ada M._, _and_ _Eleanor L._ Pearl Story Book. Duffield. Turquoise Story Book. Duffield.

_Slaughter, Gertrude._ Two Children in Old Paris. Macmillan.

_Smith, Charlotte Curtis._ Old Cobblestone House. Rochester, N. Y. Craftsman Press.

_Steele, Wilbur Daniel._ *Land’s End and Other Stories. Harper.

_Steinberg, Judah._ *Breakfast of the Birds. Jewish Publication Soc. of Am.

_Taylor, Arthur Russell._ *Mr. Squem and Some Male Triangles. Doran.

_Thomas, Charles Swain_, _editor_. *Atlantic Narratives, First Series. Atlantic Monthly Co. *Atlantic Narratives, Second Series. Atlantic Monthly Co.

_Train, Arthur._ Mortmain. Scribner.

_Tweedy, Frank._ Discarded Confidante. Neale.

_Van Loan, Charles E._ Fore! Doran.

_Wagnalls, Mabel._ *Rose-Bush of a Thousand Years. Funk and Wagnalls.

_Wagner, Rob._ Film Folk. Century.

_Waldo, Nigel._ Wallflowers. Hannis Jordan Co.

_Wharton, Edith._ Marne. Appleton.

_White, Stewart Edward._ Simba. Doubleday, Page.

_Widdemer, Margaret._ You’re Only Young Once. Holt.

_Williams, Blanche Colton_, _editor_. *Book of Short Stories. Appleton.

_Wolcott, Laura._ *Gray Dream. Yale Univ. Press.