Chapter II: English and Irish Authors

THE GOLDEN WINDMILL, AND OTHER STORIES, by _Stacy Aumonier_ (The Macmillan Company). For some years Mr. Aumonier has been quietly winning an important place for himself in English letters by his admirable short stories, and this place has been fittingly recognized by Mr. Galsworthy, among others, during the past year. Eight of the nine stories in the present volume seem to me as good as stories written in the traditional technique can be, and I regard this book as only second in excellence to the volumes of A.E. Coppard and Katherine Mansfield of which I shall speak presently.

MORE LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS, by _Thomas Burke_ (George H. Doran Company). It is a wise counsel of perfection which says that sequels are barred, and I do not believe that Mr. Burke has chosen wisely in endeavoring to repeat the artistic success of "Limehouse Nights." Apart from "The Scarlet Shoes" and "Miss Plum-Blossom," this volume seems to me to be second-rate, and I feel that Mr. Burke has already exhausted his Limehouse field.

ADAM AND EVE AND PINCH ME, by _A.E. Coppard_ (Alfred A. Knopf). I have endeavored elsewhere to express my opinion of "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me" by dedicating this year's annual volume to Mr. Coppard. I believe that he ranks as an artist among the best continental writers. He sees life as a pattern which he simplifies, and weaves a closely wrought fabric which is a symbol of human life as seen by a disinterested but happy observer. His range is wide, and if he presents the uncommon instance of a man who has absorbed all that two men as different as Chekhov and Henry James have to teach, he brings to this fusion a personal view which transmutes the values of his masters into a new set of values. To do this successfully is the sign of a fine artist.

DEAD MAN'S PLACK, AND AN OLD THORN, by _W.H. Hudson_ (E.P. Dutton & Company). Mr. Hudson's devoted readers have long known of the existence of these two stories, and have regretted that the author did not see fit to issue them in book form. The first story is a short study in historical reconstruction equal to the best of Jacobsen's work, while "The Old Thorn" ranks with "El Ombu" as one of Mr. Hudson's best two short stories. The volume is, of course, a permanent addition to English literature.

TOP O' THE MORNIN', by _Seumas MacManus_ (Frederick A. Stokes Company). Mr. MacManus's new collection of Irish tales has ups and downs like a Galway road, but his ups are very good indeed and show that he has by no means lost the folk imagination which made his early books rank among the very best of their kind. I can specially commend to the reader "The Widow Meehan's Cassimeer Shawl," "The Bellman of Carrick," and "The Heart-Break of Norah O'Hara."

BLISS AND OTHER STORIES, by _Katherine Mansfield_ (Alfred A. Knopf). I have no hesitation in stating after careful thought that Miss Mansfield's first book of short stories at once places her in the great European tradition on a par with Chekhov and De Maupassant. This is certainly the most important book of short stories which has come to my notice since I began to edit this series of books. I say this with the more emphasis because, although her technique is the same as that of Chekhov, she is one of the few writers to whom a close study of Chekhov has done no harm. Most American short story writers are bad because they copy "O. Henry," and most English short story writers are bad because they copy Chekhov. Chekhov and "O. Henry" were both great writers because they copied nobody. I hope that the success of Miss Mansfield's book will not have the effect of substituting a new model instead of these two. Mr. Knopf is to be complimented for his taste in publishing the best two volumes of short stories of the year. It is a disinterested service to literature.

A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD, by _Leonard Merrick_ (E.P. Dutton & Company). It is unnecessary at this date to point out the special excellences of Leonard Merrick. They are such as to ensure him a tolerably secure position in the history of the English short story. But it may be well to point out that the vice of his excellence is his proneness to sentimentality. This is more evident in Mr. Merrick's other volumes than in the present collection, which is really a reissue of his best stories, including that masterpiece, "The Tragedy of a Comic Song." If one were to compile an anthology of the world's best twenty stories, this story would be among them.

SELECTED ENGLISH SHORT STORIES (XIX AND XX CENTURIES), edited by _H.S.M._ (Oxford University Press). This volume has the merit of containing in very short compass twenty-eight stories by English and American authors, not too conventionally selected, which would form admirable texts for a short story course. It includes stories by Mark Rutherford and Richard Garnett which are likely to be unfamiliar to most readers, and if taken in conjunction with the previous volume in the same series, provides a tolerably complete conspectus of the development of the short story in England and America since 1800.

ORIGINAL SINNERS, by _Henry W. Nevinson_ (B.W. Huebsch, Inc.). It has always been a mystery to me why Mr. Nevinson's short stories are so little known to American readers. His earlier volumes "The Plea of Pan" and "Between the Acts," are eagerly sought by collectors, but they have been permitted to go out of print, I believe, and the general public knows very little about them. To nine out of ten people, Mr. Nevinson is known as a publicist and war correspondent, but it is by his short stories that he will live longest, and the present volume is one more illustration of the place which has always been occupied in English literature by the gifted amateur. The stories in the present volume all lead back by implication to the golden age, and if Mr. Nevinson's mood is elegiac, he never refuses to face reality.

IRISH FAIRY TALES, by _James Stephens_ (The Macmillan Company). We think of Mr. Stephens primarily as a poet and an ironic moralist, but in the present volume a new side of his genius is revealed. It might seem that too many writers have attempted with more or less success to reproduce the spirit of the gray Irish Sagas by retelling them, and we think of Standish O'Grady, Lady Gregory, "A.E.," and others. But Mr. Stephens has seen them in the fresh light of an unconquerable youth, and I am more than half inclined to think that this is the best book he has given us.

SAVITRI, AND OTHER WOMEN, by _Marjorie Strachey_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons). Marjorie Strachey has presented the feminist point of view in eleven short stories drawn from the folklore of many nations. Her object in telling these stories is a sophisticated one, and I suspect that her success has been only partial, but she has considerable resources of style to assist her, and I think that the volume is worthy of some attention.

THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS, by _Hugh Walpole_ (George H. Doran Company). Mr. Walpole has collected in this volume twelve studies of English life in the present transition stage between war and peace. He has studied with considerable care those modifications of the English character which are noticeable to the patient observer, and his volume has some value as an historical document apart from its undoubted literary charm. While it will not rank among the best of Mr. Walpole's books, it is full of excellent _genre_ pieces rendered with subtlety and poise.