Acknowledgments are specially due to The Boston Evening Transcript for permission to reprint the large body of material previously published in its pages.

I shall be grateful to my readers for corrections, and particularly for suggestions leading to the wider usefulness of this annual volume. In particular, I shall welcome the receipt, from authors, editors, and publishers, of stories published during 1920 which have qualities of distinction, and yet are not printed in periodicals falling under my regular notice. Such communications may be addressed to me at Bass River, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

E. J. O.

CONTENTS[1]

Page
[Introduction. By the Editor]xiii
[The Kitchen Gods. By G. F. Alsop]3
(From The Century)
[An Awakening. By Sherwood Anderson]24
(From The Little Review)
[Willum's Vanilla. By Edwina Stanton Babcock]34
(From Harper's Magazine)
[A Night Among the Horses. By Djuna Barnes]65
(From The Little Review)
[Long, Long Ago. By Frederick Orin Bartlett]74
(From The Bellman)
[Dishes. By Agnes Mary Brownell]82
(From The Pictorial Review)
[The Blood-Red One. By Maxwell Struthers Burt]96
(From Scribner's Magazine)
[The Wedding-Jest. By James Branch Cabell]108
(From The Century)
[The Wrists on the Door. By Horace Fish]123
(From Everybody's Magazine)
["Government Goat." By Susan Glaspell]147
(From The Pictorial Review)
[The Stone. By Henry Goodman]167
(From The Pictorial Review)
[To the Bitter End. By Richard Matthews Hallet]178
(From The Saturday Evening Post)
[The Meeker Ritual. By Joseph Hergesheimer]200
(From The Century)
[The Centenarian. By Will E. Ingersoll]225
(From Harper's Magazine)
[Messengers. By Calvin Johnston]237
(From The Saturday Evening Post)
[Mrs. Drainger's Veil. By Howard Mumford Jones]269
(From The Smart Set)
[Under a Wine-glass. By Ellen N. La Motte]297
(From The Century)
[A Thing of Beauty. By Elias Lieberman]305
(From The American Hebrew)
[The Other Room. By Mary Heaton Vorse]312
(From McCall's Magazine)
["The Fat of the Land." By Anzia Yezierska]326
(From The Century)
[The Yearbook of the American Short Story, November,to September, 1919]351
[ Addresses of American Magazines Publishing Short]353
[ The Biographical Roll of Honor of American Short]355
[ The Roll of Honor of Foreign Short Stories in American Magazines]364
[ Volumes of Short Stories Published, November, 1918, to September, 1919: An Index]366
[ Articles on the Short Story, October, 1918, to September, 1919]372
[ Magazine Averages, November, 1918, to September, 1919]381
[ Index of Short Stories Published in American Magazines, November, 1918, to September, 1919]384

INTRODUCTION

I should like to take the text for my remarks this year on the American Short Story from that notable volume of criticism, "Our America" by Waldo Frank. For the past year, it has been a source of much questioning to me to determine why American fiction, as well as the other arts, fails so conspicuously in presenting a national soul, why it fails to measure sincerely the heights and depths of our aspirations and failures as a nation, and why it lacks the vital élan which is so characteristic of other literatures. We know, of course, that we are present at the birth of a new national consciousness in our people, but why is it that this national consciousness seems so tangled in evasion of reality and in deep inhibitions that stultify it? Mr. Frank suggests for the first time the root of the cancer, and like a skilful surgeon points out how it may be healed. His book is the first courageous diagnosis of our weakness, and I think that the attentive and honest reader will not feel that he is unduly harsh or spiritually alienated from us. Briefly put, he finds that our failure lies in not distinguishing between idealism in itself and idealization of ourselves. We regard a man who challenges our self righteousness and self admiration as an enemy of the people. What we call our idealism is rooted in materialism and the goal we set ourselves virtuously is a goal of material comfort for ourselves, and, that once attained, perhaps also for others.