Part 66 (1/2)

_Hindu Fairy Tales_, by _Florence Griswold_ (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.). These fairy tales retold for children from the ”Jataka” are narrated in a simple style which is unpretentious but effective. The legends upon which they are based are among the oldest of the human race, but they retain much of their freshness in this version.

_Uncle Remus Returns_, by _Joel Chandler Harris_ (Houghton, Mifflin Co.). This volume falls into two parts. It includes six new folk stories by Uncle Remus as told to the son of the little boy who was the eager listener in the earlier volumes. These stories rank with the best of their predecessors. To these have been added five sketches from newspaper files, which are purely ephemeral.

_The Ransom of Red Chief and Other Stories_, by _O. Henry_, as chosen for boys by _Franklin K. Mathiews_ (Doubleday, Page & Co.). It was a happy thought which inspired Mr. Mathiews to make his selection. In it the reader will find many old favorites well balanced by less familiar stories. Mr. Mathiews knew well that no coaxing was necessary to introduce these stories to boys, and has wisely dispensed with any educational apparatus.

_Gold and Iron_, by _Joseph Hergesheimer_ (Alfred A. Knopf). In these three careful studies in time and place Mr. Hergesheimer has sought to reproduce certain aspects of our American tradition. With a meticulous attention to detail, and a keen eye for salient incident, he has slowly built up three portraits which rank with the best that American fiction has given us in the past few years. The comparison with Mr. Galsworthy is an obvious one, but emphasizes a difference rather than a resemblance. There is a certain asceticism of color and emotion in these novelettes alien to Mr. Galsworthy's romantic temperament.

_Long Ever Ago_, by _Rupert Hughes_ (Harper & Brothers). During the past few years I have had frequent occasion to comment upon these admirable studies of Irish American life as they first appeared in the magazines.

I regard them as the definitive chronicle of the first Irish American generation in its process of a.s.similation by New York. But it is more than this, for it is a series of richly humorous little dramas, with an inimitable flavor of their own.

_Tales From a Famished Land_, by _Edward Eyre Hunt_ (Doubleday, Page & Co.). Mr. Hunt has been a prominent official of the American Relief Commission in Belgium, and these poignant stories, continuing as they do the record of Mr. Hunt's earlier book, ”War Bread,” are largely based on actual happenings. But the author has looked upon events with the imaginative eye of a born story writer, and it is hard to forget such finely wrought pictures as ”Ghosts” and ”Saint Dympna's Miracle.”

_Gaslight Sonatas_, by _Fannie Hurst_ (Harper & Brothers). I have expressed my opinion so frequently as to the permanent human values of Miss Hurst's work that I can only remark here that ”Gaslight Sonatas” is one of the very few permanent short story books. Of the seven stories in the volume two have been previously published in volumes of this annual.

_Abraham's Bosom_, by _Basil King_ (Harper & Brothers). This short story, now republished in book form from the Sat.u.r.day Evening Post, is an imaginative rendering of spiritual experience independent of sensory phenomena. Its effectiveness is due to its direct sense of reality and incisive characterization.

_Modern Short Stories_: _A Book for High Schools_, Edited with Introduction and Notes by _Frederick Houk Law_ (Century Company). This collection of twenty-two stories drawn entirely from contemporary work is a most persuasive introduction of the short story to young readers.

The selection is catholic, and should make the student familiar with many types of plot, characterization and style. The selection ranges from Lafcadio Hearn to Tolstoy, and from Richard Harding Davis to Fiona Macleod. Such notable stories of the past year or two as Phyllis Bottome's ”Brother Leo” and Stacy Aumonier's ”A Source of Irritation”

afford a refres.h.i.+ng change from the conventional routine. Mr. Law has succeeded almost admirably in coating the educational pill.

_The Land Where the Sunsets Go_, by _Orville H. Leonard_ (Sherman, French & Company). This volume was published in 1917 somewhat obscurely, but it has certain remarkable qualities which would make me sorry to neglect it. These sketches of the American desert are divided somewhat evenly between verse and prose. The verse is very bad, and the prose is very good. While the prose sketches are not short stories in the strict sense of the word, they contain much fine characterization and a pictorial value which place them easily first among all imaginative records of the American desert.

_The Red One_, by _Jack London_ (The Macmillan Company). These four short stories include the best of the work upon which Mr. London was engaged at the time of his death. ”Like Argus of the Ancient Times” is a true saga full of the open s.p.a.ces and the zest of youth lingering on into old age. ”The Hussy” also takes its place among the best of Mr.

London's later stories. While the other stories are distinctive I cannot report upon them so favorably.

_Canadian Wonder Tales_, by _Cyrus Macmillan_ (John Lane Company). These stories are drawn from all parts of Canada and include both Indian and French Canadian legends. While they lack the nave reality of the folk storyteller's method, the selection is excellent, and should prove a revelation to the American reader of the rich, though neglected, treasures which lie at our back door. Until Mr. C. M. Barbeau of Ottawa renders his invaluable collections accessible in more popular form, this collection will be practically the only introduction of these treasures to the general reader.

_Famous Ghost Stories_, edited by _J. Walker McSpadden_ (The Thomas Y.

Crowell Company). This selection follows more conventional lines than that of Mr. French, which I spoke of above, but it contains Defoe's ”True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal,” which is perhaps the best ghost story ever written, and which has the advantage of relative unfamiliarity. The other thirteen stories are by Sir Walter Scott, Mrs.

Gaskell, Bulwer-Lytton, H. B. Marryat, Fitz-James...o...b..ien, Hawthorne, Irving, Poe, Kipling, and d.i.c.kens. The publisher should be congratulated on the best piece of bookmaking of the year.

_E. K. Means_ (G. P. Putnam's Sons). This book is so good that it needs no t.i.tle, but raises the question as to what its successor will be called. It is a series of negro farces in narrative form chronicling the joys and tribulations of Vinegar Atts, Figger Bush, Pap Curtain, Hitch Diamond and other Louisiana negroes. The town of Tickfall will have its pilgrims some day if this book finds the audience it so richly deserves.

_Shandygaff_, by _Christopher Morley_ (Doubleday, Page & Co.). Mr.

Morley says that this book contains short stories and I will leave to the reader the delightful task of hunting them. Meanwhile I beg the question and step aside after introducing the reader to good discourse on many subjects by a man who knows how to talk.

_Uncle Abner_, by _Melville Davisson Post_ (D. Appleton and Company).

Few writers have so conscientious a technique as Mr. Post, or such a fine sense of plot. This collection of mystery stories is woven around the personality of Uncle Abner, whose Greek sense of justice is inflexible. All of these stories are masterly examples of the justifiable surprise ending, yet have the logic and dramatic power which we have come to a.s.sociate with Athenian tragedy. Their effectiveness is largely due to the value of under statement.

_Sketches in Duneland_, by _Earl H. Reed_ (John Lane Company). These studies of the dune country of Lake Michigan fall into two groups. The second and larger group consists of character studies drawn from the quaint denizens of this district with skilful humor and fine characterization. ”Holy Zeke,” ”The Love Affair of Happy Cal,” and ”The Resurrection of Bill Saunders” are the best stories in this collection, though the whole is very good indeed.

_Miss Mink's Soldier_, by _Alice Hegan Rice_ (Century Company). This is a pleasant collection of Mrs. Rice's better short stories. They will give quiet pleasure to the reader who is not too exacting and show a wide range of human interest.

_The Key of the Fields_ and _Boldero_, by _Henry Milner Rideout_ (Duffield & Company). These two picaresque novelettes have the magical glamor of fairy tales set in Maxfield Parrish landscapes. They have given me great pleasure by reason of their prismatic quality and their whimsical humor. Mr. Rideout is a conscious stylist who never falls into preciosity, but we must accept his world without qualification if we are to enter properly into the spirit of his work.

_The Best College Short Stories_, edited by _Henry T. Schnittkind_ (The Stratford Company). Mr. Schnittkind aims to consider annually the best short stories in college magazines, following the same principles which I have adopted in the present series of volumes. The idea is excellent, and the results are surprisingly good. I find in this collection three stories which would have won a place on my annual Roll of Honor: ”The Tomte Gubbe” by Alma P. Abrahamson, ”The Dead City” by Isidor Schneider, and ”Angele” by John Jones Sharon. The volume includes a large amount of valuable ill.u.s.trative material, including contributions by many magazine editors and successful writers.

_The Scar that Tripled_, by _William G. Shepherd_ (Harper & Brothers).