A Bibliographical Roll of Honor of American Short Stories for 1920 and 1921 in which “the best stories are indicated by an Asterisk.”
A Roll of Honor of Foreign Short Stories in American Magazines in which “Stories of special excellence are indicated by an Asterisk.”
Volumes of short stories published in the United States. “An Asterisk before a title indicates distinction.”
Volumes of short stories published in England and Ireland. “An Asterisk before a title indicates distinction.”
Volumes of Short Stories published in France. “An Asterisk before a title, etc.” Follows then a list of articles on the Short Story and last of all An Index of Short Stories in Books, and here the Asterisks are forced to work overtime and Mr. O’Brien’s English gets a bit sloppy. He says:
“Three Asterisks prefixed to a title indicate the more or less permanent literary value of the story.”
“More or less permanent” reminds me of an advertisement I once saw in a street car: “Face Powder makes your complexion more irresistible.” Is it possible that Mr. O’Brien wrote it?
In the division entitled Magazine Averages, Mr. O’Brien comes another cropper with “Three Asterisk stories are of somewhat permanent literary value.” Again, in the introduction, “Sherwood Anderson has made this year once more the most permanent contribution to the American Short Story.”
Mr. O’Brien’s invention of varying degrees of permanence is an important contribution to science and entitles him to receive at the very least the Order of the Golden Asterisk of the Second Class with Palms.
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