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 printed during the period between October, 1920 and September, 1921 inclusive, 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 Forest Hill, Oxfordshire, England.
E. J. O.
CONTENTS[1]
| [Introduction.] | By the Editor |
| [The Other Woman.] | By Sherwood Anderson (From The Little Review) |
| [Gargoyle.] | By Edwina Stanton Babcock (From Harper's Magazine) |
| [Ghitza.] | By Konrad Bercovici (From The Dial) |
| [The Life of Five Points.] | By Edna Clare Bryner (From The Dial) |
| [The Signal Tower.] | By Wadsworth Camp (From The Metropolitan) |
| [The Parting Genius.] | By Helen Coale Crew (From The Midland) |
| [Habakkuk.] | By Katharine Fullerton Gerould (From Scribner's Magazine) |
| [The Judgment of Vulcan.] | By Lee Foster Hartman (From Harper's Magazine) |
| [The Stick-in-the-Muds.] | By Rupert Hughes (From Collier's Weekly) |
| [His Job.] | By Grace Sartwell Mason (From Scribner's Magazine) |
| [The Rending.] | By James Oppenheim (From The Dial) |
| [The Dummy-Chucker.] | By Arthur Somers Roche (From The Cosmopolitan) |
| [Butterflies.] | By Rose Sidney (From The Pictorial Review) |
| [The Rotter.] | By Fleta Campbell Springer (From Harper's Magazine) |
| [Out of Exile.] | By Wilbur Daniel Steele (From The Pictorial Review) |
| [The Three Telegrams.] | By Ethel Storm (From The Ladies' Home Journal) |
| [The Roman Bath.] | By John T. Wheelwright (From Scribner's Magazine) |
| [Amazement.] | By Stephen French Whitman (From Harper's Magazine) |
| [Sheener.] | By Ben Ames Williams (From Collier's Weekly) |
| [Turkey Red.] | By Frances Gilchrist Wood (From The Pictorial Review) |
| [The Yearbook of the American Short Story, October, 1919, to September, 1920] |
| [Addresses of American Magazines Publishing Short Stories] |
| [The Bibliographical Roll of Honor of American Short Stories] |
| [The Roll of Honor of Foreign Short Stories in American Magazines] |
| [The Best Books of Short Stories of 1920: A Critical Summary] |
| [Volumes of Short Stories Published, October, 1919, to September, 1920: A Index] |
| [Articles on the Short Stories: An Index] |
| [Index of Short Stories in Books, November, 1918, to September, 1920] |
| [Index of Short Stories Published in American Magazines, October, 1919, to September, 1920] |
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 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.
INTRODUCTION
I suppose there is no one of us who can honestly deny that he is interested in one way or another in the American short story. Indeed, it is hard to find a man anywhere who does not enjoy telling a good story. But there are some people born with the gift of telling a good story better than others, and of telling it in such a way that a great many people can enjoy its flavor. Most of you are acquainted with some one who is a gifted story-teller, provided that he has an audience of not more than one or two people. And if you chance to live in the same house with such a man, I think you will find that, no matter how good his story may have been when you first heard it, it tends to lose its savor after he has become thoroughly accustomed to telling it and has added it to his private repertory.