Part 28

It was not altogether easy to choose the best story of the year’s issues, and it would not be easy to choose the second or third in rank. But there are several that I wish to mention as illustrative of what we consider good stories and the kind of fiction we like to publish.

“The Neighbor” by Katharine Holland Brown is a difficult thing well done. Written with less skill and feeling it would lack the beauty that distinguishes it. It is a type of story that is seldom successful, but in Miss Brown’s skilful hands it is a masterly piece of work.

“Shooting Stars” is one of Alice Brown’s New England tales, well told and absorbing in its carefully-presented setting and its analysis of character.

“The Boy in the Corner” by M. C. L. Pickthall is a story of the West, of a mining town, in its setting and atmosphere. In plot it is a study in spiritual values simply and dramatically related.

Two stories, dealing in widely different ways with love and poverty in the relation of a mother to a young daughter, are “The Genius” by Sophie Kerr, and “A Sweater for Mabel” by Elsie Singmaster. They are both admirable examples of narrative, woven around plots of universal interest.

“The Master Passion” by Mary Heaton Vorse is a piece of work that is distinguished by its keen realization of situations and values and by the mingling of emotion and reason which the story discloses.

Of lighter tone and somewhat slighter structure is “Thursday and the King and Queen” by Theodora DuBois. This is an excellent example of a pleasing humorous story, with a real plot and real people, plenty of incident and amusing situations, the kind of story we delight in.

“The Torch” by Anna Branson Hillyard is an example of a serious and sincere story dealing with one of the problems of present day young people. It is earnest without being preachy, and it has a purpose without being propaganda.

“But I Knew You’d Understand” by Ruth Comfort Mitchell is a graphic and sympathetic picture of young married life. It has a variety of well-drawn characters and an atmosphere that bears the sure touch of reality.

These are the stories that I feel I cannot pass over without mention. These stories come up to our requirements for a good piece of fiction and in every case they offer to the story-reader value that is pressed down and running over.

I am glad to have had the opportunity to publish these stories and I am happy to recommend them as examples of good contemporary fiction.

GERTRUDE B. LANE.

_Woman’s Home Companion._ 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

YOUNG’S MAGAZINE

For about thirty years _Young’s Magazine_ has been purveying fiction for the entertainment of the public. It has many readers and some contributors of twenty years’ standing. Of its fellows--all-fiction magazines that started with or shortly after it--what remnant is left!

It is good philosophy, as well as common sense, that such survival testifies to an inhering excellence or usefulness. In the case of _Young’s Magazine_ the quality making for survival is that not only has it given to the public what was wanted--good stories, but it has helped to create them; it has been the arena where many, now famous, perfected the use of their medium--where some have learned first principles, too--and it has helped all by criticism and advice.

Allowing full weight to _manner_--graces of style, diction and what not--_Young’s_ has steadfastly worked from the standpoint that _matter_ comes first. The story’s the thing; what the reader wants. This insistence on “meat” in the story--something cogent, logical, properly articulated--has won for the magazine a standing and a place with writers that is emphasized by its popular success.

Looking back over the index, familiar names are everywhere; selecting haphazard: Jeffery Farnol, Mary Roberts Rinehart, “Ouida,” Charles Hanson Towne, Marcel Prevost, Margaret Pedler, Mrs. Justin H. McCarthy, Tom Gallon, Richard Le Gallienne, Dale Drummond, Berton Braley, Hildegarde Hawthorne, Rita Weiman, Harry Kemp, Doctor Frank Crane, Octavus Roy Cohen, Nalbo Bartley, Reginald Wright Kauffman, Homer Croy, Mabel Wagnalls, Henry Payson Dowst, Martha M. Stanley, William Le Queux, Oliver Sandys, Nina Wilcox Putnam, Elizabeth Jordan, Grace MacGowan Cooke, Julian Hawthorne, Achmed Abdullah, Hapsburg Liebe, Jules Eckert Goodman, Roi Cooper Megrue, Clarence L. Cullen, Jeanne Judson, Channing Pollock, Percival Weil, Louise Winter, Martha Morton, Temple Bailey, Gertrude Brooke Hamilton, Maude Fulton.

Take it how you will--whether the fact be welcome or not--“sex,” as it is called (with the quotation marks), shares with one or two other big things the distinction of being a primal force in the life of the world. It is real; it is vital. And as _Young’s Magazine_ and _Breezy Stories_ want vital fiction, they seek stories of love and its attendant emotions as they affect and as they are expressed in life as it is lived; not the tenuous sentimentalism of the “mushy” love-story--moonshine and bubbles, beautiful airy nothings that touch _life_ at not a single point.

CASHEL POMEROY.

_Young’s Magazine._ _Breezy Stories._ THE C. H. YOUNG PUBLISHING CO., INC., 377 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Footnotes

[1] Copyright by _Ainslee’s Magazine_.

[2] Copyright by _The American Magazine_.

[3] Copyright, 1917, by _The Century Co._

[4] Copyright, 1920, by _Collier’s, The National Weekly_.

[5] Copyright, 1919, by _The Cosmopolitan Magazine_.

[6] Copyright by _Everybody’s Magazine_.

[7] Copyright by _McClure’s Magazine_

[8] Copyright by _Metropolitan Magazine_

[9] Copyright _The People’s Home Journal_.

[10] Copyright _Pictorial Review_.

[11] Copyright by _Short Stories_

[12] Copyright _The Woman’s Home Companion_.

[13] Copyright, by Courtland H. Young

Transcriber’s Notes

• Italic text denoted by _underscores_. • Small capitals converted to ALL CAPS. • Footnotes renumbered consecutively and moved to the end of the text. • Obvious typographic errors corrected silently. • Variations in hypenation and spelling (especially between authors) kept as in the original. • References to the Footnotes and Transcriber’s Notes added to the Table of Contents for user convenience.