Best Russian Short Stories, compiled and edited by Thomas Seltzer (Boni and Liveright). This is the first anthology of Russian short stories which has yet been published in English, and the selections are excellent. There is a wide range of literary art represented in this volume, and the translations are extremely smooth and idiomatic. As is only fitting, the work of Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, Turgenev, and other Russians, whose work is already well known to the American reader, are only represented lightly in the collection, and greater space is devoted to the stories of Chekhov and other writers less familiar to the American public. Nineteen stories are translated from the work of Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoievsky, Tolstoi, Saltykov, Korolenko, Garshin, Chekhov, Sologub, Potapenko, Semyonov, Gorky, Andreyev, Artzybashev, and Kuprin, and the volume is prefixed with an excellent critical introduction by the editor.
A Country Child by Grant Showerman (The Century Co.). This is a sequel to Professor Showerman's earlier volume, "A Country Chronicle." The book is an epic of what a little boy saw and felt and dreamed on a farm in Wisconsin forty years ago, told just as a little boy would tell it. It will help you to remember how you went to the circus and how you stayed up late on your birthday. You will also recall the ball game the day you didn't go home from school, and how you went in swimming, and about that fight with Bill, and ever so many other things which you thought that you had forgotten. I think all the boys and girls that used to write to James Whitcomb Riley should send a birthday letter this year to Grant Showerman, so that he will get it on the 9th of January. Let's start a movement in Wisconsin to have a Showerman Day.
Flame and the Shadow-eater by Henrietta Weaver (Henry Holt & Co.). In these fifteen short allegorical tales Henrietta Weaver has introduced with considerable skill much Persian philosophy, and presented it to the American reader so attractively that it is thoroughly persuasive. Akin in a measure to certain similar stories by Jeannette Marks, they have the same prismatic quality of brilliance and impermanence. I do not believe that the reader who enjoys the poetry of the mind will find these allegories specially esoteric, but I may commend them frankly for their story value, irrespective of the symbols which the author has chosen to attach to them.
The Great Modern French Stories edited by Willard Huntington Wright (Boni and Liveright), Married by August Strindberg (Boni and Liveright), and Visions by Count Ilya Tolstoy (James B. Pond) have reached me too late for extended review. I list them here as three volumes of permanent literary value.
VOLUMES OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED DURING 1917
Note. An asterisk before a title indicates distinction. This list includes single short stories, collections of short stories, and a few continuous narratives based on short stories previously published in magazines.
I. American Authors
Adams, Samuel Hopkins.
*Our Square and the People In It. Houghton-Mifflin.
Bain, R. Nisbet.
*Cossack Fairy Tales. Stokes.
Bangs, John Kendrick.
Half Hours With the Idiot. Little, Brown.
Bassett, Wilbur.
Wander-Ships. Open Court Pub. Co.
Beach, Rex.
Laughing Bill Hyde. Harper.
Bend, Rev. John J.
Stranger than Fiction. Sheehan.
Bottome, Phyllis.
*Derelict, The. Century.
Bradley, William Aspenwall.
*Old Christmas, and Other Kentucky Tales in Verse. Houghton-Mifflin.
Brady, Cyrus Townsend.
Little Book for Christmas, A. Putnam.
Brooks, Alden.
*Fighting Men, The. Scribner.
Brown, Katharine Holland.
*Wages of Honor, The. Scribner.
Brubaker, Howard.
Ranny. Harper.
Brunton, F. Carmichael.
Enchanted Lochan, The. Crowell.
Bunner, H. C.
*More "Short Sixes." Scribner.
*"Short Sixes." Scribner.
Bunts, Frederick Emory.
Soul of Henry Harrington, The. Cleveland: privately printed.
Butler, Ellis Parker.
Dominie Dean. Revell.
Carmichael, M. H.
Pioneer Days. Duffield.
Carter, Charles Franklin.
Stories of the Old Missions of California. Elder.
Chambers, Robert W.
*Barbarians. Appleton.
Cobb, Irvin S.
*Those Times and These. Doran.
Coffin, Julia H.
Vendor of Dreams, The. Dodd, Mead.
*Collier's, Prize Stories From. 5 v. Collier.
Connolly, James B.
*Running Free. Scribner.
Coolidge, Grace.
*Teepee Neighbors. Four Seas.
Crownfield, Gertrude.
Little Tailor of the Winding Way, The. Macmillan.
Davis, Charles Belmont.
Her Own Sort and Others. Scribner.
Davis, Richard Harding.
*Boy Scout, The, and Other Stories. Scribner.
*Deserter, The. Scribner.
Duncan, Norman.
*Billy Topsail, M.D. Revell.
Eells, Elsie Spicer.
*Fairy Tales from Brazil. Dodd, Mead.
Fisher, Fred B.
Gifts from the Desert. Abington Press.
Foote, John Taintor.
Dumb-bell of Brookfield. Appleton.
Ford, Sewell.
Wilt Thou Torchy. Clode.
For France. Doubleday, Page.
Fox, Edward Lyell.
New Gethsemane, The. McBride.
Fox, John, Jr.
*In Happy Valley. Scribner.
Futrelle, Jacques.
Problem of Cell 13, The. Dodd, Mead.
Gordon, Armistead C.
*Ommirandy. Scribner.
Greene, Frederick Stuart, Editor.
*Grim Thirteen, The. Dodd, Mead.
"Hall, Holworthy."
Dormie One. Century.
Hanshew, T. W.
Cleek's Government Cases. Doubleday, Page.
Hemenway, Hetty.
*Four Days. Little, Brown.
"Henry, O."
*Waifs and Strays. Doubleday, Page.
Hines, Jack.
Blue Streak, The. Doran.
Holmes, Mary Caroline.
"Who Follows in Their Train?" Revell.
Hough, Lynn Harold.
Little Old Lady, The.
Hughes, Rupert.
In a Little Town. Harper.
Ingram, Eleanor M.
Twice American, The. Lippincott.
Irwin, Wallace.
Pilgrims Into Folly. Doran.
Jefferson, Charles E.
Land of Enough, The. Crowell.
Johnston, Mary.
*Wanderers, The. Houghton-Mifflin.
Johnston, William.
"Limpy." Little, Brown.
Karr, Louise.
Trouble. Himebaugh and Browne.
Kellerhouse, Lucy Charlton.
*Forest Fancies. Duffield.
Kirk, R. G.
White Monarch and the Gas-House Pup. Little, Brown.
Kirkland, Winifred.
*My Little Town. Dutton.
Lait, Jack.
Gus the Bus and Evelyn, the Exquisite Checker. Doubleday, Page.
Lardner, Ring W.
Gullible's Travels. Bobbs-Merrill.
Leacock, Stephen.
Frenzied Fiction. Lane.
Lewis, Gertrude Russell.
*Designer of Dawns, A. Pilgrim Press.
McClung, Nellie L.
Next of Kin, The. Houghton-Mifflin.
Mackay, Helen.
*Journal of Small Things. Duffield.
Meirovitz, Joseph M.
Path of Error, The. Four Seas Co.
Merwin, Samuel.
Temperamental Henry. Bobbs-Merrill.
Newton, Alma.
Memories. Duffield.
Noble, Edward.
Outposts of the Fleet. Houghton-Mifflin.
O'Brien, Edward J., Editor.
The Best Short Stories of 1916. Small, Maynard.
Osborn, E. B.
Maid with Wings, The. Lane.
Paine, Albert Bigelow.
Mr. Crow and the Whitewash. Harper.
Mr. Rabbit's Wedding. Harper.
Mr. Turtle's Flying Adventure. Harper.
Paine, Ralph D.
Sons of Eli. Scribner.
Perkins, J. R.
Thin Volume, A. Saalfield.
Perry, Montanye.
Where It Touches the Ground. Abingdon Press.
Zerah. Abingdon Press.
Piper, Edwin Ford.
*Barbed Wire and Other Poems. Midland Press.
Putnam, Nina Wilcox.
When the Highbrow Joined the Outfit. Duffield.
Reeve, Arthur B.
Ear in the Wall, The. Hearst.
Treasure Train, The. Harper.
Richmond, Grace S.
Whistling Mother, The. Doubleday, Page.
Rinehart, Mary Roberts.
Bab: A Sub-deb. Doran.
Rodeheaver, Homer.
Song Stories of the Sawdust Trail. Moffat, Yard.
Rosenbach, A. S. W.
Unpublishable Memoirs, The. Kennerley.
Ryder, Arthur W.
*Twenty-two Goblins. Dutton.
Sabin, Edwin L.
How Are You Feeling Now? Little, Brown.
Schayer, E. Richard.
Good Loser, The. McKay.
Scott, Leroy.
Mary Regan. Houghton-Mifflin.
Showerman, Grant.
*Country Child, A. Century.
Steiner, Edward A.
My Doctor Dog. Revell.
Stern, Gertrude.
My Mother and I. Macmillan.
Stitzer, Daniel Ahrens.
Stories of the Occult. Badger.
Stuart, Florence Partello.
Piang, the Moro Jungle Boy. Century.
Taber, Susan.
Optimist, The. Duffield.
"Thanet, Octave."
And the Captain Entered. Bobbs-Merrill.
Thomson, Edward William.
Old Man Savarin Stories. Doran.
Tompkins, Juliet Wilbor.
At the Sign of the Oldest House. Bobbs-Merrill.
Turpin, Edna.
Peggy of Roundabout Lane. Macmillan.
Tuttle, Florence Guertin.
Give My Love to Maria. Abingdon Press.
Van Loan, Charles E.
Old Man Curry. Doran.
Weaver, Henrietta.
*Flame and the Shadow-Eater. Holt.
Willsie, Honoré.
Benefits Forgot. Stokes.
II. English and Irish Authors