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as one of the two best books of fairy tales published this year. Like Ispirescu's collection of Roumanian stories it seems to bear traces of a secret animistic doctrine disclosing the mystery of change, and to have crystallized in literary form through centuries of traditional storytelling.
_Mas.h.i.+, and Other Stories_, by _Sir Rabindranath Tagore_ (The Macmillan Company). Of these stories it is difficult to speak without undue enthusiasm. With admirable economy of means, Tagore has succeeded in conveying the utmost subtlety of nostalgic remembrance, and the sensuous beauty of shrouded landscape in which he projects his figures sustains profound emotional revelation without undue tightening of the literary fabric. His literary method is a strange one to us, but it might well be the beginning of a new short story tradition in which an American writer could find inspiration as fresh as the new impulse that the discovery of j.a.panese prints brought to Whistler and others that followed him.
_Paulownia_: Seven Stories from Contemporary j.a.panese Writers, translated by _Torao Taketomo_ (Duffield & Company). These stories reveal a new world to us, as significant in its way as the world of Tagore's stories. Some of these j.a.panese writers have been influenced by European models, but their spirit is essentially national, and springs from an imaginative quality which it is hard for us at first to recapture. All the stories have a finished art, and so has Mr. Torao Taketomo's translation.
_What Men Live By, and Other Stories_, by _Leo Tolstoi_, translated by _L. and A. Maude_ (The Stratford Company). This collection includes four familiar stories by Tolstoi chosen for their social doctrine. The format of the book is pleasant, and the choice of stories excellent.
VOLUMES OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED, JANUARY TO OCTOBER, 1918: AN INDEX
_NOTE._ _An asterisk before a t.i.tle indicates distinction. This list includes single short stories, collections of short stories, textbooks, and a few continuous narratives based on short stories previously published in magazines._
I. _American Authors_
_Andrews, Mary Raymond s.h.i.+pman._ *Her Country. Scribner.
_Anonymous._ Thompson. Houghton-Mifflin.
_Antin, Mary._ *Lie, The. Atlantic Monthly Press.
_Bach.e.l.ler, Irving A._ Story of a Pa.s.sion. Roycrofters.
_Bacon, Josephine Daskam._ On Our Hill. Scribner.
_Bagnold, Enid._ Diary Without Dates. Luce.
_Barton, George._ Strange Adventures of Bromley Barnes. Page.
_Bell, Robert B. H._ Laughing Bear. Sh.o.r.es.
_Bellegarde, Sophie de._ Russian Soldier-Peasant. Young Churchman.
_Bierce, Ambrose._ *Can Such Things Be? Boni and Liveright.
*In the Midst of Life. Boni and Liveright.
_Bottome, Phyllis._ *Helen of Troy, and Rose. Century.
_Brown, Alice._ *Flying Teuton. Macmillan.
_Buffum, G. Tower._ On Two Frontiers. Lothrop, Lee and Shepard.
_Burt, Maxwell Struthers._ *John O'May, and Other Stories. Scribner.
_Butler, Ellis Parker._ Philo Gubb. Houghton-Mifflin.
_Canfield, Dorothy._ *Home Fires in France. Holt
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