Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories; Second Series

Modern Short Stories EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES SWAIN THOMAS, A.M. Head of Department of English, Cleveland School of Education Lecturer in the Harvard Summer School SECOND SERIES
The Atlantic Monthly Press BOSTON Copyright, 1918, by THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS, INC.
FOR those readers who have from early childhood been taught that the best things are the old things, it is oftentimes difficult to revert in imagination to the times when such classics as Paradise Lost , Pilgrim’s Progress , and Robinson Crusoe , new and unread, were just beginning to make their first tentative steps in the march toward the unknown and unseen goal of enduring fame. Yet the intrinsic literary worth of these classics was obviously just as firm in those far-off days of their initial appearance as in these present days of their acquired renown.
But in these present days, with the improved printing-presses moving at high speed and pouring forth everywhere their improvident and unsifted store, the best is too liable to be lost within the swift current of a vast and turbid abundance. It is, therefore, worth while for us—for those of us who have an abiding love of literature—to endeavor to rescue and place in more permanent form the choicest bits of this modern efflux of writing, and make it easily available for a more leisurely and intelligent perusal.
With this thought in mind, I have for several months been reading widely in the files of the Atlantic Monthly , with the idea of republishing the best of the recent stories in book form. A partial result of my labors is seen in Atlantic Narratives (First Series), published by the Atlantic Monthly Press in March of the current year. In selecting the twenty-three stories for that volume, I had the college student and the mature reader more definitely in mind. Some of these stories, accordingly, were perhaps a trifle too subtle and analytical for the younger student, though it is interesting to note that the volume immediately found an interested audience, not only among college students and the reading public, but also within the classrooms of some of our best schools and academies.