The Best Short Stories of 1920 Part 76

#Children in the Mist#, by _George Madden Martin_ (D. Appleton & Company), and #More E. K. Means# (G. P. Putnam's Sons). Both of these volumes represent traditional att.i.tudes of the Southern white proprietor to the negro, and both fail in artistic achievement because of their excessive realization of the gulf between the two races. Mrs. Martin's book is the more artistic and the less sympathetic, though it has more professions of sympathy than that of Mr. Means. They both display considerable talent, the one in historical portraiture of reconstruction times, and the other in genial caricature of the more childish side of the less-educated negro. The negroes whom Mr. Means has invented have still to be born in the flesh, but there is an infectious humor in his nightmare world which he may plead as a justification for the misuse of his very real ability.

#The Gift, England to America#, and #Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge#, by _Margaret Prescott Montague_ (E.P. Dutton & Company, and Doubleday, Page & Company). These three short stories are all spiritual studies of human reactions and moods generated by the war, set down with a deft hand in a neutral style, somewhat over-repressed perhaps, but thoroughly successful in the achievement of what Miss Montague set out to do. The second and best of these won the first prize offered last year as a memorial to "O. Henry" by The Society of Arts and Sciences of New York City. Good as it is, I am tempted to disagree with its interpretation of the English att.i.tude toward America in general, although it may very well be true in many an individual case. Miss Montague suffers from a certain imaginative poverty which is becoming more and more characteristic of puritan art and life in America. From the point of view of style, however, these stories share distinction in the Henry James tradition only with Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Anne Douglas Sedgwick, Arthur Johnson and H. G. Dwight.

#From the Life#, by _Harvey O'Higgins_ (Harper & Brothers). This volume should be read in connection with "Twelve Men," by Theodore Dreiser.

Where Mr. Dreiser identifies himself with his subjects, Mr. O'Higgins stands apart in the most strict detachment. These nine studies in contemporary American life take as their point of departure in each case some tiny and apparently insignificant happening which altered the whole course of a life. Artists, actors, politicians, and business men all date their change of fortune from some ironic accident, and in three of these nine stories the author's a.n.a.lysis merits close re-reading by students of short story technique. Behind the apparent looseness of structure you will find a new and interesting method of presentation which is as effective as it is deliberate. I regard "From the Life" as one of the more important books of 1919.

#The Mystery at the Blue Villa#, by _Melville Davisson Post_ (D. Appleton and Company), and #Silent, White and Beautiful#, by _Tod Robbins_ (Boni and Liveright). These two volumes furnish an interesting contrast. The subject-matter of both is rather shoddy, but Mr. Post displays a technique in the mystery story which is quite unrivalled since Poe in its inevitable relentlessness of plot based on human weakness, while Mr.

Robbins shows a wild fertility of imagination of extraordinary promise, although it is now wasted on unworthy material. I think that both books will grip the reader by their quality of suspense, and I shall look forward to Mr. Robbins' next book with eager interest.

#The Best Ghost Stories.# Introduction by _Arthur B. Reeve_ (Boni and Liveright, Inc.). Mr. French's new collection of ghost stories supplements his volume ent.i.tled "Great Ghost Stories," published in the previous year. I consider it the better collection of the two, and should particularly like to call attention to the stories by Leopold Kompert and Ellis Parker Butler. The latter is Mr. Butler's best story and has, so far as I know, not been reprinted elsewhere. For the rest, the volume ranges over familiar ground.

#High Life#, by _Harrison Rhodes_ (Robert M. McBride & Co.). Setting aside the t.i.tle story which, as a novelette, does not concern us here, this volume is chiefly noteworthy for the reprint of "Spring-Time." When I read this story for the first time many years ago, it seemed to me one that Mr. Arthur Sherburne Hardy would have been proud to sign. It is not perhaps readily realized how difficult it is to write a story so deftly touched with sentiment, while maintaining the necessary economy of personal emotion. "The Sad Case of Quag" exemplifies the gallic aspect of Mr. Rhodes' talent.

#The Red Mark#, by _John Russell_ (Alfred A. Knopf). This uneven volume of short stories by a writer of real though undisciplined talent is full of color and kaleidoscopic hurrying of events. Apart from "The Adversary,"

which is successful to a degree, the book is uncertain in its rendering of character, though Mr. Russell's handling of plot leaves little to be desired.

#The Pagan#, by _Gordon Arthur Smith_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). It was expected that when Mr. Smith's first volume of short stories should appear, it would take its place at once as pre-eminent in the romantic revival which is beginning to be apparent in the American short story.

This volume does not disappoint our expectations, although it would have gained in authority had it been confined to the five Taillandy Stories, "Jeanne, the Maid," and "The Return." Mr. Smith's output has always been wisely limited, and "The Pagan" represents the best work of nine years.

These stories are only second in their kind to those of James Branch Cabell and Stephen French Whitman.

#The Elder's People#, by _Harriet Prescott Spofford_ (Houghton, Mifflin Company). Mrs. Spofford has collected in this volume the best among the short stories which she has written since 1904, and the collection shows no diminution in her powers of accurate and tender observation of New England folk. These fourteen prose idyls have a mellow humanism which portrays the last autumn fires of a dying tradition. They rank with the best work of Miss Jewett and Mrs. Spofford herself in the same kind, and are a permanent addition to the small store of New England literature. I wish to call special attention to "An Old Fiddler," "A Village Dressmaker," and "A Life in a Night."

#The Valley of Vision#, by _Henry van d.y.k.e_ (Charles Scribner's Sons).

This volume of notes for stories rather than stories themselves calls for no particular comment save for two admirable fugitive studies ent.i.tled "A Remembered Dream" and "The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France." These seem to me creditable additions to the small store of American legends which the war produced, but the other stories and sketches are rather bloodless. They are signs of the spiritual anaemia which is so characteristic of much of American life.

#The Ninth Man#, by _Mary Heaton Vorse_ (Harper & Brothers). When this story was published in Harper's Magazine six years ago, it attracted wide attention as a vividly composed presentment of human pa.s.sions in a mediaeval scene. The allegory was not stressed unduly, and was perhaps taken into less account then than it will be now. But events have since clarified the story in a manner which proves Miss Vorse to have been curiously prophetic. In substance it is very different from what we have come to a.s.sociate with her work, but I think that its modern social significance will now be obvious to any reader. Philosophy aside, I commend it as an admirably woven story.

#Anchors Aweigh#, by _Harriet Welles_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). I think the chief value of this volume is as a quiet record of experience without any remarkable qualities of plot and style, but it is full of promise for the future, and in "Orders" Mrs. Welles has written a memorable story. The introduction by the Secretary of the Navy rather overstates the case, but I think no one will deny the genuine feeling and truth with which Mrs. Welles has presented her point of view.

#Ma Pettengill#, by _Harry Leon Wilson_ (Doubleday, Page & Company). I must confess that temperamentally I am not inclined to rank these humorous stories of American life as highly as many critics. I grant their sincerity of portraiture, but they show only too plainly the signs of Mr. Wilson's compromise with his large audience in The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post. They are written, however, with the author's eye on the object, and Ma Pettengill herself is vividly realized.

#Hungry Hearts#, by _Anzia Yezierska_ (Houghton Mifflin Company). When I reprinted "Fat of the Land" last year I stated that it seemed to me perhaps the finest imaginative contribution to the short story made by an American artist last year. My opinion is confirmed by Miss Yezierska's first collection of stories, and particularly by "Hunger,"

"The Miracle," and "My Own People." I know of no other American writer who is driven by such inevitable compulsion to express her ideal of what America might be, and it serves to underscore the truth that the chief idealistic contribution to American life comes no longer from the anaemic Anglo-Saxon puritan, but from the younger elements of our mixed racial culture. Such a flaming pa.s.sion of mingled indignation and love for America embodies a message which other races must heed, and proves that there is a spiritual America being born out of suffering and oppression which is destined to rule before very long.

II. #English and Irish Authors#

#Windmills: A Book of Fables#, by _Gilbert Cannan_ (B. W. Huebsch, Inc.).

This is the first American edition of a book published in London in 1915. Conceived as a new "Candide," it is a bitter satire on war and international politics. While it ostensibly consists of four short stories, they have a unity of action which is sketched rather than fully set forth. In fact, the volume is really a notebook for a larger work.

Set beside the satire of Voltaire, Mr. Cannan's master, it is seen to fail because of its lack of kindly irony. In fact, it is a little overdone.

#The Eve of Pascua#, by "_Richard Dehan_" (George H. Doran Company). Two years ago I had occasion to call attention to the quite unstressed romanticism of Mrs. Graves' "Under the Hermes." The present volume is of much less significance, and I only mention it because of the t.i.tle story, which is an adequately rendered picture of contemporary Spanish life, much less overdrawn than the other stories.

#Poems and Prose#, of _Ernest Dowson_ (Boni and Liveright). Five of the nine short stories by Ernest Dowson are included in this admirable reprint, but it omits the better stories which appeared in The Savoy, and in a later edition I suggest that the poems be printed in a volume by themselves with Mr. Symons' memoir, and all the stories in another volume which should include among others "The Dying of Francis Donne"

and "Countess Marie of The Angels."

#The Golden Bird and Other Sketches#, by _Dorothy Eastern_, with a foreword by _John Galsworthy_ (Alfred A. Knopf). These forty short sketches of Suss.e.x and of France are rendered deftly with a faithful objectivity of manner which has not barred out the essential poetry of their substance. These pictures are lightly touched with a quiet brooding significance, as if they had been seen at twilight moments in a dream world in which human relationships had been partly forgotten. They are frankly impressionistic, except for the group of French stories, in which Miss Easton has sought more definitely to interpret character. The danger of this form is a certain preciosity which the author has skilfully evaded, and the influence of Mr. Galsworthy is nowhere too clearly apparent. I recommend the volume as one of the best English books which has come to us during the past year.

#My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People#, by _Caradoc Evans_ (Harcourt, Brace and Howe). In his third collection of stories, Mr. Evans has for the most part forsaken his study of the Cardigan Bay peasant for the London Welsh, and although his style preserves the same stark biblical notation as before, it seems less suited to record the ironies of an industrial civilization. Allowing for this, and for Mr. Evans' bent towards an unduly acid estimate of human nature, it must be confessed that these stories have a certain permanent literary quality, most successful in "Earthbred," "Joseph's House," and "A Widow Woman." These three collections make it tolerably clear that Mr. Evans will find his true medium in the novel, where an epic breadth of material is at hand to fit his epic breadth of speech.

#Tatterdemalion#, by _John Galsworthy_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). This volume contains the ripest product of Mr. Galsworthy's short story art during the past seven years. Its range is very wide, and in these twenty-three stories, we have the best of the mystical war legends from "The Grey Angel" to "Cafard," the gentle irony of "The Recruit" and "Defeat," and the gracious vision of "Spindleberries," "The Nightmare Child," and "b.u.t.tercup-Night." Nowhere in the volume do we find the slight touch of sentimentality which has marred the strength of Mr.

Galsworthy's later novels, but everywhere very quietly realised pictures of a golden age which is still possible to his imagination, despite the harsh conflict with material realities which his art has often encountered. Perhaps the best story in the present collection is "Cafard," where Mr. Galsworthy has almost miraculously succeeded in extracting the last emotional content out of a situation in which a single false touch of sentiment would have wrecked his story.

#Limbo#, by _Aldous Huxley_ (George H. Doran Company). This collection of six fantasies in prose and one play has no special principle of unity except its attempt to apply the art of Laforgue to much less adequate material. Setting aside "Happy Families" as entirely negligible, and "Happily Ever After" and "Eupompus Gave Splendour to Art by Numbers" as qualified successes, the other four stories do achieve more or less what they set out to do, although Mr. Huxley only achieves a personal synthesis of style and substance in "The Death of Lully." The other three stories are full of promise as yet unrealised because of Mr.

Huxley's inability or unwillingness to conceal the technique of his art.

#Deep Waters#, by _W. W. Jacobs_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). Mr. Jacobs'

formula is not yet outworn, but it is becoming perilously uncertain. His talent has always been a narrow one, but in his early volumes his realization of character was quite vivid, and his plot technique superb.

At least two of these stories are entirely mechanical, and the majority do not rise above mediocrity. "Paying Off," "Sam's Ghost," and "Dirty Work" faintly recall Mr. Jacobs' early manner.

#Lo, and Behold Ye!#, by _Seumas MacMa.n.u.s_ (Frederick A. Stokes Company).

Many of these chimney-corner stories are older than Homer, but Mr.

MacMa.n.u.s has retold them in the language of the roads, and this pageant of tinkers and kings, fairies and scholars, lords and fishermen march by to the sound of the pipes and the ribald comments of little boys along the road. The quality of this volume is as fresh as that of those first Donegal fairy stories which Mr. McClure discovered twenty-five years ago. I think that the best of these stories are "The Mad Man, The Dead Man, and the Devil," "Dark Patrick's Blood-horse," and "Donal O'Donnell's Standing Army," but this is only a personal selection.

#The Clintons, and Others#, by _Archibald Marshall_ (Dodd, Mead and Company). I believe that this is Mr. Marshall's first volume of short stories, and they have a certain interest as a quiet chronicle of an old social order which has gone never to return. The comparison of Mr.

Marshall's work with that of Anthony Trollope is as inevitable as it is to the former's disadvantage. This volume shows honest, sincere craftsmanship, and never rises nor falls below an average level of mediocrity.

#The Man Who Understood Women#, and #While Paris Laughed#, by _Leonard Merrick_ (E. P. Dutton and Company). These two volumes of the collected edition of Mr. Merrick's novels and stories are of somewhat uneven value. The best of them have a finish which is unsurpa.s.sed in its kind by any of his English contemporaries, but there are many stories in the first of these two volumes which are somewhat ephemeral. Mr. Locke in his introduction to "The Man Who Understood Women" rather overstates Mr.

Merrick's case, but at his best these stories form an interesting English parallel to the work of O. Henry. The second volume suffers the fate of all sequels in endeavouring to revive after a lapse of years the pranks and pa.s.sions of the poet Tricotrin. The first five stories in the volume, while they do not attain the excellence of "The Tragedy of a Comic Song," are worthy stories in the same kind. The other seven stories are frankly mawkish in content, although redeemed by Mr.

Merrick's excellent technique.

#Workhouse Characters#, by _Margaret Wynne Nevinson_ (The Macmillan Company). This collection of newspaper sketches written during the past fifteen years have no pretensions to art, and were written with a frankly propagandist intention. The vividness of their portraiture and the pa.s.sion of their challenge to the existing social order warrant their mention here, and I do not think they will be forgotten readily by those who read them. This volume has attracted little comment in the American press, and it would be a pity if it is permitted to go out of print over here.

#The New Decameron#: Volume the First (Robert M. McBride & Co.). There is more to be said for the idea which prompted these stories than for the success with which the idea has been carried out. A group of tourists seeking adventures on the Continent agree to beguile the tedium of the journey by telling each other tales. Unfortunately the Nightingale does not sing on, and the young Englishmen and women who have collaborated in this volume have gone about their task in a frankly amateurish spirit.

The stories by W. F. Harvey and Sherard Vines attain a measured success, and some mention may be made of M. Storm-Jameson's story, "Mother-love."

It is to be hoped that in future volumes of the series, the editor will choose his contributors more carefully, and frankly abandon the Decameron structure, which has been artificially imposed after the stories were written.

#Wrack, and Other Stories#, by "_Dermot O'Byrne_" (Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.), #The Golden Barque, and the Weaver's Grave#, by _Seumas O'Kelly_ (Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.), and #Eight Short Stories#, by _Lennox Robinson_ (Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.). As these three volumes are not published in America, I only mention them here in the hope that this notice may reach a friendly publisher's eye. Up to a few years ago poetry and drama were the only two creative forms of the Irish Literary Revival. This tide has now ebbed, and is succeeded by an equally significant tide of short story writers. The series of volumes issued by the Talbot Press, of which those I have just named are the most noteworthy, should be promptly introduced to the American public, and I think that I can promise safely that they are the forerunners of a most promising literature.

#The Old Card#, by _Roland Pertwee_ (Boni and Liveright, Inc.). This series of twelve short stories depict the life of an English touring actor with a quiet artistry of humor suggestive of Leonard Merrick's best work. They are quite frankly studies in sentiment, but they successfully avoid sentimentality for the most part, and in "Eliphalet Cardomay" I feel that the author has created a definitely perceived character.

#Old Junk#, by _H. M. Tomlinson_ (Alfred A. Knopf). It is not my function here to point out that "Old Junk" is one of the best volumes of essays published in recent years, but simply to direct attention to the fact that it includes two short stories, "The Lascar's Walking-Stick" and "The Extra Hand," which are fine studies in atmospheric values. I think that the former should find a place in most future anthologies.

#By Violence#, by "_John Trevena_" (The Four Seas Company). Although John Trevena's novels have found a small public in America, his short stories are practically unknown. The present volume reprints three of them, of which "By Violence" is the best. In fact, it is only surpa.s.sed by "Matrimony" in its revelation of poetic grace and gentle vision. If the feeling is veiled and somewhat aloof from the common ways of men, there is none the less a fine human sympathy concealed in it. I like to think that a new reading of earth may be deciphered from this text.

#Port Allington Stories#, by _R. E. Vernede_ (George H. Doran Company).

This volume of stories which is drawn from the late Lieutenant Vernede's output during the past twelve years reveals a genuine talent for the felicitous portrayal of social life in an English village, and suggests that he might have gone rather far in stories of adventure.

"The Maze" is the best story in the volume, and makes it clear that a brilliant short story writer was lost in France during the war.

#Holy Fire, and Other Stories#, by _Ida A. R. Wylie_ (John Lane Company).

I have called attention to many of these stories in previous years, but now that they are reprinted as a group I must reaffirm my belief that few among the younger English short story writers have such a command of dramatic finality as Miss Wylie. It is true that these stories might have been told with advantage in a more quiet tone. This would have made the war stories more memorable, but perhaps the problem which the book presents for solution is whether or no an instinctive dramatist is using the wrong literary medium. Certainly in "Melia, No Good" her treatment would have been less effective in a play than in a short story.

III. #Translations#

#When the King Loses His Head, and Other Stories#, by _Leonid Andreyev._ Translated by _Archibald J. Wolfe_ (International Book Publishing Company), and #Modern Russian Cla.s.sics.# Introduction by _Isaac Goldberg_ (The Four Seas Company). In previous years I have called attention to other selections of Andreyev's stories. The present collection includes the best from the other volumes, with some new material. "Judas Iscariot" and "Lazarus" are the best of the prose poems. "Ben-Tobith,"

"The Ma.r.s.eillaise," and "Dies Irae" are the most memorable of his very short stories, while the volume also includes "When The King Loses His Head," and a less-known novelette ent.i.tled "Life of Father Va.s.sily." The volume ent.i.tled "Modern Russian Cla.s.sics" includes five short stories by Andreyev, Sologub, Artzibashev, Chekhov, and Gorky.

#Prometheus: the Fall of the House of Limon: Sunday Sunlight: Poetic Novels of Spanish Life#, by _Ramon Perez de Ayala_, Prose translations by _Alice P. Hubbard_: Poems done into English by _Grace Hazard Conkling_ (E. P. Dutton & Co.). Senor Perez de Ayala has achieved in these three stories what may be quite frankly regarded as a literary form. They do not conform to a single rule of the short story as we have been taught to know it. In fact, this is a pioneer book which opens up a new field.