Part 32

_Wormser, C. Ranger._ *Scarecrows. Dutton.

II. _English and Irish Authors_

“_Ayscough, John._” *Tideway. Benziger.

“_Bartimeus._” *Long Trick. Doran.

_Bell, John Joy._ *Johnny Pryde. Revell.

_Blackwood, Algernon._ *Empty House. Dutton. *John Silence. Dutton. *Listener. Dutton. *Lost Valley. Dutton.

_Brebner, Percy James._ Christopher Quarles. Dutton.

*_Buchan, John._ *Watcher by the Threshold. Doran.

_Burke, Thomas._ *Nights in London. Holt.

_Cable, Boyd._ Front Lines. Dutton.

“_Centurion._” _See_ Morgan, Captain J. H.

_Copplestone, Bennet._ Lost Naval Papers. Dutton.

“_Dehan, Richard._” *Under the Hermes. Dodd, Mead.

_Doyle, A. Conan._ *Danger. Doran.

_Dunsany, Lord._ *Book of Wonder. (Modern Library.) Boni and Liveright. *Tales of War. Little, Brown.

_Empey, Arthur Guy._ Tales from a Dugout. Century.

_Evans, Caradoc._ *Capel Sion. Boni and Liveright. *My Own People. Boni and Liveright.

_Galsworthy, John._ *Five Tales. Scribner.

_Graham, Stephen._ *Quest of the Face. Macmillan.

_Graves, Clotilde._ _See_ “Dehan, Richard.”

“_Hanshew, T. W._” (_Charlotte May Kingsley._) Cleek, the Master Detective. Doubleday, Page.

_Harker, L. Allen._ *Children of the Dear Cotswolds. Scribner.

_Hodgson, William Hope._ Captain Gault. McBride.

_Jacks, L. P._ *Country Air. Holt.

_Kipling, Rudyard._ *Tales. Four Seas.

_Moore, George._ *Story-Teller’s Holiday. Boni and Liveright.

_Morgan, Captain J. H._ (“Centurion.”) *Gentlemen at Arms. Doubleday, Page.

_Morrison, Arthur._ *Tales of Mean Streets. Goodman.

_Noyes, Alfred._ *Walking Shadows. Stokes.

_O’Kelly, Seumas._ *Waysiders. Stokes.

_Pearse, Padraic._ *Collected Works. Stokes.

_Pertwee, Roland._ Transactions of Lord Louis Lewis. Dodd, Mead.

_Phillpotts, Eden._ *Chronicles of St. Tid. Macmillan.

_Sabatini, Rafael._ *Historical Nights’ Entertainment. Lippincott.

“_Sapper._” Human Touch. Doran.

_Sélincourt, Hugh de._ *Nine Tales. Dodd, Mead.

_Stockley, Cynthia._ *Blue Aloes. Putnam.

“_Trevena, John._” *By Violence. Four Seas.

_Vachel, Horace Annesley._ *Some Happenings. Doran.

_Walker, Dugald Stewart._ Dream Boats. Doubleday, Page.

_Wilde, Oscar._ *Fairy Tales and Poems in Prose. Boni and Liveright. *House of Pomegranates. Moffat, Yard.

_Yeats, W. B._, _editor_. *Irish Fairy and Folk Tales. (Modern Library.) Boni and Liveright.

“_Yeo._” Soldier Men. Lane.

III. _Translations_

_Andreyev, Leonid Nikolaevich._ (_Russian._) (_See also_ Modern Russian Classics.) *Seven That Were Hanged, and The Red Laugh. (Modern Library.) Boni and Liveright.

_Andreyev, Leonid Nikolaevich_, and _Bunin, Ivan Alexeivich_. (_Russian._) *Lazarus (by Andreieff) and The Gentleman from San Francisco (by Bunin). Stratford Co.

_Artzibashev, Michael._ (_Russian._) _See_ Modern Russian Classics.

_Balzac, Honoré de._ (_French._) *Short Stories. (Modern Library.) Boni and Liveright.

_Barbusse, Henri._ (_French._) *We Others. Dutton.

_Baŭdes, Joseph_, _editor_. (_Czech._) *Czech Folk Tales. Macmillan.

_Boccaccio de Certaldo, Giovanni._ (_Italian._) Tales from Boccaccio. Stratford.

_Bosschère, Jean de._ (_French._) *Folk Tales of Flanders. Dodd, Mead.

_Bunin, Ivan Alexeivich._ (_Russian._) _See_ Andreyev, Leonid Nikolaevich, _and_ Bunin, Ivan Alexeivich.

_Chekhov, Anton._ (_Russian._) (_See also_ Modern Russian Classics.) *Nine Humorous Tales. Stratford. *Wife. Macmillan. *Witch. Macmillan.

_Dantchenko, V. I. Nemirovitch-._ (_Russian._) *Peasant Tales of Russia. McBride.

_Dostoevskii, Fyodor Mikhailovich._ (_Russian._) *White Nights. Macmillan.

_Friedlander, Gerald_, _translator_. (_Yiddish._) Jewish Fairy Stories. Bloch.

_Gogol, Nikolai Vassilyevitch._ (_Russian._) *Taras Bulba. Dutton.

_Goldberg, Isaac_, _editor_. (_Portuguese._) *Brazilian Tales. Four Seas.

_Gorky, Maxim._ (_Russian._) (_See also_ Modern Russian Classics.) *Creatures That Once Were Men. Boni and Liveright. *Stories of the Steppe. Stratford.

_Latzko, Andreas._ (_German._) *Men in War. Boni and Liveright.

_McPherson, William_, _editor_. (_French._) *Tales of Wartime France. Dodd, Mead.

_Maupassant, Guy de._ (_French._) *Mademoiselle Fifi. Four Seas. *Selected Short Stories. Current Literature Pub. Co.

_Mendés, Catulle._ (_French._) *Fairy Spinning Wheel. Four Seas.

_Mijatovich, Elodie L._, _translator_. (_Serbian._) *Serbian Fairy Tales. McBride.

*_Modern Russian Classics._ (_Russian._) (Stories by Andreyev, Sologub, Gorky, Chekhov, and Artzibashev.) Four Seas.

_Nemirovitch-dantchenko, V. I._ (_Russian._) _See_ _Dantchenko, V. I. Nemirovitch-._

_Schweikert, Harry C._, _editor_. (_French._) *French Short Stories. Scott, Foresman.

_Segovia, Gertrudis._ (_Spanish._) *Spanish Fairy Book. Stokes.

“_Sologub, Feodor._” (_Feodor Kuzmitch Teternikov._) (_Russian._) _See_ Modern Russian Classics.

_Tagore, Sir Rabindranath._ (_Bengali._) *Mashi, and Other Stories. Macmillan.

_Taketomo, Torao_, _editor_. (_Japanese._) *Paulownia. Duffield.

_Tchekhov, Anton._ (_Russian._) _See_ Chekhov, Anton.

_Tolstoy, Lyof._ (_Russian._) *Death of Ivan Ilyitch, and Other Stories. Boni and Liveright. *What Men Live By. Stratford.

_Underwood, Edna Worthley._ *Famous Stories from Foreign Countries. Four Seas.

THE BEST SIXTY AMERICAN SHORT STORIES

JANUARY TO OCTOBER, 1918: A CRITICAL SUMMARY

_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 hundred and twenty stories, whose literary excellence justifies me in including them in my annual “Roll of Honor.” The stories which are included in this Roll of Honor have been chosen from the stories published in seventy-four American periodicals during the first ten months of 1918. In selecting them I have sought to accept the author’s point of view and manner of treatment, and to measure simply his degree of success in accomplishing what he set out to achieve. I have permitted no personal preference or prejudice to influence my mind consciously for or against a story. But I must confess that it has been difficult to eliminate personal admiration completely in the further winnowing which has resulted in this selection of sixty stories. Below are set forth the particular qualities which have seemed to me to justify in each case the inclusion of a story in this list._

1. _A Simple Act of Piety_, by _Achmed Abdullah_ (The All-Story Weekly). To those who enjoyed last year Thomas Burke’s “Limehouse Nights,” the series of Pell Street stories which Captain Abdullah is publishing in the Century Magazine, Collier’s Weekly, and the All-Story Weekly will be welcome. To a vivid sense of color and an economy of dramatic situation, “A Simple Act of Piety,” which is the best of these stories, adds a fine appreciation of the Oriental point of view. The characterization is almost subjective it is so real, and the story is a fine crystallization of the poetry inherent in New York Chinatown life.

2. _The Man of Ideas_, by _Sherwood Anderson_ (Little Review), points the way to a new American realism. Those who have read Mr. Anderson’s other Winesburg stories in the Seven Arts and the Little Review will remember that he has set himself the task of portraying the spiritual values of a small Ohio community without sentimentality. These stories suggest the Spoon River Anthology, and indeed the tradition inaugurated by Edgar Lee Masters, Sherwood Anderson, and other realists of the new Chicago School seems likely to carry on the vision of Walt Whitman to new goals of achievement.

3. _Cruelties_ (Harper’s Magazine) and 4. “_Goddess Size_” (Harper’s Magazine), by _Edwina Stanton Babcock_. When Miss Babcock published “The Excursion” last year in the Pictorial Review, I expressed my belief that it was one of the best five American short stories of the year. I regard these two stories as marking a significant advance in Miss Babcock’s art. Her characterization of these Nantucket folks has a subtle humor and poetry linked to a faithful realism. Miss Babcock continues to prove herself a leader in short-story regionalism. “Cruelties” is very quietly done and no point is over-stressed. In fact I find a greater reticence in these stories than in Miss Babcock’s earlier work, and this is all to the good.

5. _The Bell-Tower of P’An-Ku_, by “_John Brangwyn_” (Century Magazine). This story by an American novelist, whose name is not to be revealed, comes with a definite message to Americans from China. It is an allegory quietly setting forth the essence of the imaginative attitude toward life. Like a shifting tapestry, pictures weave to and fro, and the way is opened to us to see the vision that the unknown Chinese master saw.

6. _Buster_, by _Katharine Holland Brown_ (Scribner’s Magazine). Here in clear swift portraiture Miss Brown has caught the spirit of America, youthful and eager, living dangerously and happily, and prepared to face danger, and, if necessary, seek it. “Buster” is a study of the typical young American who finds himself at last as an aviator in France. No story could better interpret our spirit to the English and French imagination.

7. _The Sorry Tale of Hennery K. Lunk_, by _Ellis Parker Butler_ (Harper’s Magazine). This tale of a mournful mariner ashore on the banks of the Mississippi would have delighted Mark Twain. I hope Mr. Butler will forgive me if I state that it contains more poetry than prose. But after all, mournful mariners come and go, while their stories go on forever.

8. _The Black Pearl_, by _Katharine Butler_ (Atlantic Monthly). This story, redolent of the East, is an admirable study in atmosphere. It has all the nostalgia of a half-forgotten dream, and yet it is so confidently set forth that we may enter its background without difficulty. Style is not a common quality, I regret to say, in American short stories, but the picture portrayed in “The Black Pearl” is well nigh flawless.

9. _Some Ladies and Jurgen_, by _James Branch Cabell_ (Smart Set), is a wilful apologue of poets and their wives which will delight the thoughtful while disappointing the serious. It is really a prose poem without any moral whatever, unless perhaps the moral Miss Guiney once pointed out when she said that tall talk always reminded her of the Himalayas. I commend the fable to all would-be poets.

10. _The Gallowsmith_, by _Irvin S. Cobb_ (All-Story Weekly). This story, which marks a great departure from Mr. Cobb’s usual vein, is one of the most grim stories an American magazine has ever published, but it is a masterly portrait of a professional hangman which the reader cannot easily forget. With vivid completeness of detail, and characterization which is admirably suggestive, Mr. Cobb manages the situation in such a way that its conclusion is inevitable, yet unexpected.

11. _The Open Window_, by _Charles Caldwell Dobie_ (Harper’s Magazine), is a sequel to “Laughter,” which I published last year as one of the best short stories of 1917. Unlike most sequels, it is perhaps better than its predecessor, and the mastery of his art which Mr. Dobie shows only serves to confirm my prediction of two years ago, that in Mr. Dobie America would find before long one of its four or five best short-story writers. An adventurous publisher, anxious to issue the best that is being written in American fiction, cannot afford to neglect Mr. Dobie.

12. _The Emerald of Tamerlane_, by _H. G. Dwight and John Taylor_ (Century Magazine). Every discriminating reader knows H. G. Dwight’s book of short stories entitled “Stamboul Nights,” and admires its quality of romantic mystery and poetic description. “The Emerald of Tamerlane” admirably sustains Mr. Dwight’s reputation for vivid realization of Persian life.

13. _Blind Vision_, by _Mary Mitchell Freedley_ (Century Magazine). This story, by S. Weir Mitchell’s granddaughter, marks not only Mrs. Freedley’s first appearance in print, but the arrival of a remarkable new talent. It is a study of an American aviator and a spiritual problem that he had to decide, and is set down with exceptional artistic economy.

14. _The Irish of It_, by _Cornelia Throop Geer_ (Atlantic Monthly). This little study, which is hardly more than a dialogue, is inimitable in its deft humorous characterization. It is good news to be able to report that Miss Geer is planning a volume of stories about these Irish boys and girls whose poetry of thought and action is so coaxing.

15. _Imagination_, by _Gordon Hall Gerould_ (Scribner’s Magazine). Captain Gerould has taken his subject quietly and handled it with a thoughtful sense of its possibilities. This study of a successful writer of best sellers, with his egregious solemnity and lack of imagination, is delightfully rendered. The subtlety of the author’s psychology will not blind the reader to its essential truth.

16. _Marchpane_, by _Katharine Fullerton Gerould_ (Harper’s Magazine). Mrs. Gerould has only published one short story this year, but fortunately it ranks among her best. It is written with all her usual close observation of abnormal psychological situations. The art of few stories is concealed so successfully, and the story is one of which Henry James would have been proud.

17. _In Maulmain Fever-Ward_, by _George Gilbert_. This story, which appeared in a Chicago magazine, is the first of an unusual series of stories dealing with East Indian life. It is full of a wild poetry of speech and action, set against a background of almost oppressive natural beauty. I think that the story would have gained by a little more reticence, but the groundwork is firm and the detail admirably rendered.

18. “_Beloved Husband_” (Harper’s Magazine) and 19. “_Poor Ed_” (The Liberator), by _Susan Glaspell_. Susan Glaspell has already won a high reputation in three equally difficult fields, those of the novel, the drama, and the short story. Considering her as a short-story writer only, we may say that these two stories reflect the best that she has done, with the possible exception of the story entitled “A Jury of Her Peers,” which I reprinted in “The Best Short Stories of 1917.” Both are studies in suppressed ambition, set forth with a gentle humor which does not fail by virtue of overstress. Susan Glaspell is at her best in “Poor Ed,” a study in the triumph of failure.

20. _Sinjinn Surviving_, by _Armistead C. Gordon_ (Harper’s Magazine). This story is one more addition to Mr. Gordon’s studies of Virginia negro plantation life. It introduces us once more to Ommirandy and Uncle Jonas, and is a quiet idyl of the life that survived in Virginia after the fall of the Confederacy.

21. _Even So_, by _Charles Boardman Hawes_ (The Bellman). The art of Mr. Hawes has developed so quietly during the past few years that it has not attracted the attention it richly deserves. This study of life and death many years ago in the Southern Seas recaptures much of the magic of the old sailing-ship days when the _Helen of Troy_ and other American clippers came bravely into port. The story has a fine legendary quality.

22. _Decay_, by _Ben Hecht_ (Little Review). When Mr. Hecht published “Life” in the Little Review some few years ago I predicted that the future would reveal the fulfilment of his remarkable promise, although I was not quite sure whether Mr. Hecht would find himself most fully in the short story or in the novel. During these years his output has been small but distinguished, and the present study of Chicago life shows a marked advance in technique. Nevertheless I now think that the novel is Mr. Hecht’s natural vehicle, and that when his first novel appears it will create a profound literary impression.

23. _Their War_, by _Hetty Hemenway_ (Atlantic Monthly). When Miss Hemenway published “Four Days” in the Atlantic Monthly last year, it created more discussion than any other war story of the year. Her new story, which is in as quiet a key, represents an advance in her art, and the two stories taken together represent one of the few important contributions America has made to the imaginative literature of the war. The war has taught us that youth is old enough, under the stress of events, to speak for itself, and there is a brave frankness about Mrs. Richard’s exposition of this truth which brings it home to all.

24. _At the Back of God Speed_, by _Rupert Hughes_ (Hearst’s Magazine). Three years ago Mr. Hughes published in the Metropolitan Magazine two stories which were as fine in their way as the best of Irvin Cobb’s humorous stories. In “Michaeleen! Michaelawn!” and “Sent for Out” Mr. Hughes depicted with his wonted kindliness and pathos the first generation of successful Irish immigrants. “At the Back of God Speed” now completes the series, which form as a whole the most faithful portrait yet drawn of the Americanized Irishman.

25. _The Father’s Hand_, by _George Humphrey_ (The Bookman). Although Mr. Humphrey was born in England he has now definitely adopted us and I suppose we may claim him as an American writer. This brief and touching study of one minor incident in the Great War shows a fine sense of human values, whose artistic effect is enhanced by deliberate understatement.

26. _Her’s_ _NOT_ _to Reason Why_, by _Fannie Hurst_ (Cosmopolitan). This story was published in 1917, when it unaccountably failed to attract my attention, and as an act of prosaic justice I now chronicle it, because I believe it to be the best story Miss Hurst has yet published. The temptation to oversentimentalize the theme must have been almost irresistible, but the author has not failed in reticence and this study of a certain aspect of New York life will not be soon forgotten.

27. _The Little Family_ (Harper’s Magazine) and 28. _The Visit of the Master_ (Harper’s Magazine), by _Arthur Johnson_. These stories have nothing in common except the fact that they reinforce Mr. Johnson’s claim this year to rank with Mrs. Gerould, Wilbur Daniel Steele, H. G. Dwight, and Charles Caldwell Dobie as one of the most finished artists in America to-day. “The Visit of the Master” is an altogether delightful social comedy, not without a moral. “The Little Family,” on the other hand, is a poignant study of the effect of war on the gentle imaginations of two lonely men. Its quality makes us think of the relation between Stevenson and his old nurse, and stylistically it is admirable. I suggest with all diffidence, and from a point of view of frank personal preference that it is very possibly the best short story of the year.

29. _In the Open Code_, by _Burton Kline_ (The Stratford Journal). This brief tale in sharp outline recounts a single human incident. Romantic in treatment, it is told with the eye on the object. It is a finished piece of workmanship.

30. _The Willow Walk_, by _Sinclair Lewis_ (Saturday Evening Post). It was an interesting problem which presented itself to Mr. Lewis when he thought of writing this story. Could a criminal of marked intellectual ability create a dual personality for himself by inventing an imaginary brother, give up his own personality after his crime, and live on undetected in the continuous imaginative realization of his new personality? Mr. Lewis has studied the psychological effects of such a successful impersonation and shown the destructive force of mental suggestion on the soul, in a manner which is in interesting contrast to that employed by Charles Caldwell Dobie in the story which I have mentioned above.

31. _The Haymakers_ (Stratford Journal) and 32. _Old Lady Hudson_ (The Midland), by _Jeannette Marks_. These two allegorical stories are written in what is usually a most hazardous literary form. I think that Miss Marks has steered clear of Scylla and Charybdis successfully, and pointed out to a somewhat deaf world the imaginative realities which underlie the commercial crust of our American civilization. These stories, and others of similar tenor, are to be published shortly in a volume entitled “Forgotten Sins.”

33. _Nettle and Foxglove_, by _Marjory Morten_ (Century Magazine). This is a study in conflicting temperaments which is very gently rendered with an art that recalls in its subtlety that of Miss Ethel Sidgwick’s novels. A collection of Mrs. Morten’s studies, reprinted from the files of the Century Magazine, would make an interesting volume.

34. _The Story Vinton Heard at Mallorie_, by _Katharine Prescott Moseley_ (Scribner’s Magazine). Miss Moseley, who is a niece of Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, shares with Mrs. Frances G. Wood the distinction of having contributed one of the two most enduring legends this year to the supernatural literature of the war. One of the most significant aspects of the American short story during the past two years has been its increasing preoccupation with supernatural beliefs, especially as they have a bearing on the fortunes of the war. Arthur Machen perhaps inaugurated this movement with his remarkable story about the angels of Mons, but the spirit was implicit before that in much American work. In editing a series of War Echoes for The Bookman last year, I had occasion to read the manuscripts of several hundred war stories, and it was a gratifying surprise to find that fully sixty per cent of these stories dealt with some supernatural aspect of the war.

35. _Clouds_, by _Walter L. Myers_ (The Midland). This remarkable study of place is one of the best stories so far produced in the literary revival throughout the Middle West which centres around the nucleus of The Midland. I wish that The Midland would publish a volume of stories selected from its columns during the last three years. Such a book would quickly earn a permanent place on our shelves.

36. _Owen Carey_, by _Harvey J. O’Higgins_ (The Century Magazine). I believe this story to be the most distinguished in the series of imaginary American portraits that Mr. O’Higgins has been publishing during the past two years. These studies aim to take as a starting point the lives of men and women successful in many different fields, and to depict in each case the thing which may have seemed perfectly trivial at the time, but which actually proved to be the turning point in their careers. It is such an incident in the life of a successful romantic novelist which Mr. O’Higgins portrays in this story.

37. _The Second-Rater_, by _James Oppenheim_ (Century Magazine). In this brilliant study of artistic temperament, Mr. Oppenheim portrays the spiritual struggle of an artist in such a way as to reveal the finer grain. The author has been clearly influenced by Henry James, but the texture of his story is a little loosely woven.

38. _Unto Each His Crown_, by _Norma Patterson_ (The Bookman). This nervously written study of death in battle and the discovery it awakened is the work of a new writer who should have a brilliant future if my judgment does not betray me. Like Miss Moseley’s story, it is a study in the supernatural implications of the war. There is a proud joy in it which the reader will find infectious.