It has been a point of honor with me not to republish an English story, nor a translation from a foreign author. I have also made it a rule not to include more than one story by an individual author in the volume. The general and particular results of my study will be found explained and carefully detailed in the supplementary part of the volume.
As in past years it has been my pleasure and honor to associate this annual with the names of Benjamin Rosenblatt, Richard Matthews Hallet, Wilbur Daniel Steele, and Arthur Johnson, so it is my wish to dedicate this year the best that I have found in the American magazines as the fruit of my labors to Anzia Yezierska, whose story, "Fat of the Land", seems to me perhaps the finest imaginative contribution to the short story made by an American artist this year.
Edward J. O'Brien.
Oxford, England,
October 29, 1919.
THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1919
Note.—The order in which the stories in this volume are printed is not intended as an indication of their comparative excellence; the arrangement is alphabetical by authors.