GERMAN
Heinrich Zschokke, Wilhelm Heinrich von Riehl, Paul Heyse, Ferdinand von Saar, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Rudolf Baumbach, Ernst von Wildenbruch, Max Nordau, Hermann Sudermann, Gabriele Reuter, Ludwig Fulda, Arthur Schnitzler, and Clara Viebig.
About half of the stories have been especially translated for this collection, and some of them now appear in English for the first time. Among these will be found some by the more recent writers in Germany and Russia, two very interesting groups of moderns whose work has not received as much attention at the hands of the public as it would seem to merit.
In only two or three cases, where the point of view was likely to fail of appreciation by American readers, have the stories been abbreviated or otherwise altered; and attention has been called to this in the accompanying note.
The notes which preceded the stories in “Short Story Classics (American)” proved to be an appreciated and even popular feature, and it is hoped that those written for the present collection may prove equally acceptable.
If any one country more than another can be said to excel in the use and development of the modern short story form, it is France. The literatures of Russia, Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, as well as that of the United States, have all been influenced to a greater or lesser extent by the art of Balzac, Gautier, Mérimée, and De Maupassant, for in France short story writing may be said to be based on a theory of art, and to be, consequently, the result of conviction.
This theory of art, apart from the questions of form which it involves, in themselves important considerations, affords great freedom to the writer in the choice of subject-matter and the method of treatment. It presupposes the artist’s right to his point of view. It presupposes an audience more keenly alive to life and the manifestations of life than is characteristic of the general reading public in America at the present time. Generalizations like these are at the best unsatisfactory, since the differences alluded to must be apprehended and can not be well expounded; they will have abundantly served their purpose if they awaken curiosity and prompt the reader unfamiliar with the short story in foreign literatures, and especially in the literature of France, to make his own comparisons.
All over the world the literary main current seems to be toward the development of the realism of twenty-five years ago. From Denmark, where the trace is slightest, to Russia, where it is most brutal, the best work is apparently being done by the realists. In France there is a decided reaction against strenuous realism, but it is principally the reaction of a few individuals, and among these the most prominent is Anatole France. He is not any the less a realist, in the sense of being true to nature, because his intelligence is concerned with an appreciation of something else besides the material side of life.
To those who are familiar with the work of Émile Zola, it seems desirable to explain that “Jacques Damour,” a really great story, was too long to be included in this collection. An interesting comparison can be made between “The Bit of String,” by Guy de Maupassant, and the two stories which it inspired, “The Slanderer,” by Anton Chekhov, and “The End of Candia,” by Gabriele d’Annunzio.
Even the most casual reader must surely be impressed with the extraordinary vitality of these stories and their likeness to life. It is a likeness that is not always optimistic, it is true, as in the case of many of the Russian writers, for example, but it seldom depends on a misstatement of the facts of experience to create its effect, and is seldom lacking in integrity of workmanship.