Wrack, and Other Stories, by "Dermot O'Byrne" (Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.), The Golden Barque, and the Weaver's Grave, by Seumas O'Kelly (Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.), and Eight Short Stories, by Lennox Robinson (Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.). As these three volumes are not published in America, I only mention them here in the hope that this notice may reach a friendly publisher's eye. Up to a few years ago poetry and drama were the only two creative forms of the Irish Literary Revival. This tide has now ebbed, and is succeeded by an equally significant tide of short story writers. The series of volumes issued by the Talbot Press, of which those I have just named are the most noteworthy, should be promptly introduced to the American public, and I think that I can promise safely that they are the forerunners of a most promising literature.
The Old Card, by Roland Pertwee (Boni and Liveright, Inc.). This series of twelve short stories depict the life of an English touring actor with a quiet artistry of humor suggestive of Leonard Merrick's best work. They are quite frankly studies in sentiment, but they successfully avoid sentimentality for the most part, and in "Eliphalet Cardomay" I feel that the author has created a definitely perceived character.
Old Junk, by H. M. Tomlinson (Alfred A. Knopf). It is not my function here to point out that "Old Junk" is one of the best volumes of essays published in recent years, but simply to direct attention to the fact that it includes two short stories, "The Lascar's Walking-Stick" and "The Extra Hand," which are fine studies in atmospheric values. I think that the former should find a place in most future anthologies.
By Violence, by "John Trevena" (The Four Seas Company). Although John Trevena's novels have found a small public in America, his short stories are practically unknown. The present volume reprints three of them, of which "By Violence" is the best. In fact, it is only surpassed by "Matrimony" in its revelation of poetic grace and gentle vision. If the feeling is veiled and somewhat aloof from the common ways of men, there is none the less a fine human sympathy concealed in it. I like to think that a new reading of earth may be deciphered from this text.
Port Allington Stories, by R. E. Vernède (George H. Doran Company). This volume of stories which is drawn from the late Lieutenant Vernède's output during the past twelve years reveals a genuine talent for the felicitous portrayal of social life in an English village, and suggests that he might have gone rather far in stories of adventure. "The Maze" is the best story in the volume, and makes it clear that a brilliant short story writer was lost in France during the war.
Holy Fire, and Other Stories, by Ida A. R. Wylie (John Lane Company). I have called attention to many of these stories in previous years, but now that they are reprinted as a group I must reaffirm my belief that few among the younger English short story writers have such a command of dramatic finality as Miss Wylie. It is true that these stories might have been told with advantage in a more quiet tone. This would have made the war stories more memorable, but perhaps the problem which the book presents for solution is whether or no an instinctive dramatist is using the wrong literary medium. Certainly in "Melia, No Good" her treatment would have been less effective in a play than in a short story.
III. Translations
When the King Loses His Head, and Other Stories, by Leonid Andreyev. Translated by Archibald J. Wolfe (International Book Publishing Company), and Modern Russian Classics. Introduction by Isaac Goldberg (The Four Seas Company). In previous years I have called attention to other selections of Andreyev's stories. The present collection includes the best from the other volumes, with some new material. "Judas Iscariot" and "Lazarus" are the best of the prose poems. "Ben-Tobith," "The Marseillaise," and "Dies Iræ" are the most memorable of his very short stories, while the volume also includes "When The King Loses His Head," and a less-known novelette entitled "Life of Father Vassily." The volume entitled "Modern Russian Classics" includes five short stories by Andreyev, Sologub, Artzibashev, Chekhov, and Gorky.
Prometheus: the Fall of the House of Limón: Sunday Sunlight: Poetic Novels of Spanish Life, by Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Prose translations by Alice P. Hubbard: Poems done into English by Grace Hazard Conkling (E. P. Dutton & Co.). Señor Pérez de Ayala has achieved in these three stories what may be quite frankly regarded as a literary form. They do not conform to a single rule of the short story as we have been taught to know it. In fact, this is a pioneer book which opens up a new field. The stories have no plot, no climax, no direct characterization, and at first sight no plan. Presently it appears that the author's apparent episodic treatment of his substance has a special unity of its own woven around the spiritual relations of his heroes. It is hard to judge of an author's style in translation, but the brilliant coloring of his pictures is apparent from this English version. The nearest analogue in English are the fantasies of Norman Douglas, but Pérez de Ayala has a much more profoundly realized philosophy of life. The poems which serve as interludes in these stories, curiously enough, add to the unity of the action.
The Last Lion, and Other Tales, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, with an Introduction by Mariano Joaquin Lorente (The Four Seas Company). The present vogue of Señor Blasco Ibáñez is more sentimental than justified, but in "Luxury" he has written an admirable story, and the other five stories have a certain distinction of coloring.