The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 1

The Best Short Stories of 1917.

by Various.

INTRODUCTION

A year ago, in the introduction to "The Best Short Stories of 1916," I pointed out that the American short story cannot be reduced to a literary formula, because the art in which it finds its concrete embodiment is a growing art. The critic, when he approaches American literature, cannot regard it as he can regard any foreign literature.

Setting aside the question of whether our cosmopolitan population, with its widely different kinds of racial heritage, is at an advantage or a disadvantage because of its conflicting traditions, we must accept the variety in substance and attempt to find in it a new kind of national unity, hitherto unknown in the history of the world. The message voiced in President Wilson's words on several occasions during the past year is a true reflection of the message implicit in American literature.

Various in substance, it finds its unity in the new freedom of democracy, and English and French, German and Slav, Italian and Scandinavian bring to the common melting-pot ideals which are fused in a national unity of democratic utterance.

It is inevitable, therefore, that in this stage of our national literary development, our newly conscious speech lacks the sophisticated technique of older literatures. But, perhaps because of this very limitation, it is much more alert to the variety and life of the human substance with which it deals. It does not take the whole of life for granted and it often reveals the fresh navete of childhood in its discovery of life. When its sophistication is complete, it is the sophistication of English rather than of American literature, and is derivative rather than original, for the most part, in its criticism of life. I would specifically except, however, from this criticism the work of three writers, at least, whose sophistication is the embodiment of a new American technique. Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Wilbur Daniel Steele, and H. G. Dwight have each attained a distinction in our contemporary literature which places them at the head of their craft.

During the past year there has been much pessimistic criticism of the American short story, some of it by Americans, and some by Europeans who are now residing in our midst. To the European mind, trained in a tradition where technique in story-writing is paramount, it is natural that the American short story should seem to reveal grave deficiencies.

I am by no means disposed to minimize the weakness of American craftsmans.h.i.+p, but I feel that at the present stage of our literary development, discouragement will prove a very easy and fatal thing. The typical point of view of the European critic, when justified, is adequately reflected in an article by Mary M. Colum, which was published in the Dial last spring: "Those of us who take an interest in literary history will remember how particular literary forms at times seize hold of a country: in Elizabethan England, it was the verse drama; in the eighteenth century, it was the essay; in Scandinavia of a generation ago, it was the drama again. At present America is in the grip of the short story--so thoroughly in its grip indeed that, in addition to all the important writers, nearly all the literate population who are not writing movie scenarios are writing or are about to write short stories.

One reason for this is the general belief that this highly sophisticated and subtle art is a means for making money in spare time, and so one finds everybody, from the man who solicits insurance to the barber who sells hair-tonics, engaged in writing, or in taking courses in the writing, of short stories. Judging from what appears in the magazines, one imagines that they get their efforts accepted. There is no doubt that the butcher, the baker, and the candle-stick maker are easily capable of producing the current short stories with the aids now afforded."

Now this is the heart of the matter with which criticism has to deal. It is regrettable that the American magazine editor is not more mindful of his high calling, but the tremendous advertising development of the American magazine has bound American literature in the chains of commercialism, and before a permanent literary criticism of the American short story can be established, we must fight to break these bonds. I conceive it to be my essential function to begin at the bottom and record the first signs of grace, rather than to limit myself to the top and write critically about work which will endure with or without criticism. If American critics would devote their attention for ten years to this spade work, they might not win so much honor, but we should find the atmosphere clearer at the end of that period for the true exercise of literary criticism.

Nevertheless I contend that there is much fine work being accomplished at present, which is buried in the ruck of the interminable commonplace.

I regard it as my duty to chronicle this work, and thus render it accessible for others to discuss.

Mrs. Colum continues: "Apart from the interesting experiments in free verse or polyphonic prose, the short story in America is at a low ebb.

Magazine editors will probably say the blame rests with their readers.

This may be so, but do people really read the long, dreary stories of from five to nine thousand words which the average American magazine editor publishes? Why a vivid people like the American should be so dusty and dull in their short stories is a lasting puzzle to the European, who knows that America has produced a large proportion of the great short stories of the world."

I deny that the American short story is at a low ebb, and I offer the present volume as a revelation of the best that is now being done in this field. I agree with Mrs. Colum that the best stories are only to be found after a laborious dusty search, but this is the proof rather than the refutation of my position.

Despite the touch of paradox, Mrs. Colum makes two admirable suggestions to remedy this condition of affairs. "A few magazine editors could do a great deal to raise the level of the American short story. They could at once eradicate two of the things that cause a part of the evil--the wordiness and the commercial standardization of the story. By declining short stories over three thousand words long, and by refusing to pay more than a hundred dollars for any short story, they could create a new standard and raise both the prestige of the short story and of their magazines. They would then get the imaginative writers, and not the exploiters of a commercial article."

I am not sure that the average American editor wishes to welcome the imaginative writer, but a.s.suming this to be true, I would modify Mrs.

Colum's suggestions and propose that, except in an unusual instance, the short story should be limited to five thousand words, and that the compensation for it should not exceed three hundred dollars.

To repeat what I have said in previous volumes of this series, for the benefit of the reader as yet unacquainted with my standards and principles of selection, I shall point out that I have set myself the task of disengaging the essential human qualities in our contemporary fiction which, when chronicled conscientiously by our literary artists, may fairly be called a criticism of life. I am not at all interested in formulas, and organized criticism at its best would be nothing more than dead criticism, as all dogmatic interpretation of life is always dead.

What has interested me, to the exclusion of other things, is the fresh living current which flows through the best of our work, and the psychological and imaginative reality which our writers have conferred upon it.

No substance is of importance in fiction, unless it is organic substance, that is to say, substance in which the pulse of life is beating. Inorganic fiction has been our curse in the past, and bids fair to remain so, unless we exercise much greater artistic discrimination than we display at present.

During the past year I have sought to select from the stories published in American magazines those which have rendered life imaginatively in organic substance and artistic form. As the most adequate means to this end, I have taken each short story by itself, and examined it impartially. I have done my best to surrender myself to the writer's point of view, and granting his choice of material and personal interpretation of its value, have sought to test it by the double standard of substance and form. Substance is something achieved by the artist in every act of creation, rather than something already present, and accordingly a fact or group of facts in a story only obtain substantial embodiment when the artist's power of compelling imaginative persuasion transforms them into a living truth. The first test of a short story, therefore, in any qualitative a.n.a.lysis is to report upon how vitally compelling the writer makes his selected facts or incidents.

This test may be known as the test of substance.

But a second test is necessary if a story is to take high rank above other stories. The true artist will seek to shape this living substance into the most beautiful and satisfying form, by skilful selection and arrangement of his material, and by the most direct and appealing presentation of it in portrayal and characterization.

The short stories which I have examined in this study, as in previous years, have fallen naturally into four groups. The first group consists of those stories which fail, in my opinion, to survive either the test of substance or the test of form. These stories are listed in the year-book without comment or a qualifying asterisk. The second group consists of those stories which may fairly claim that they survive either the test of substance or the test of form. Each of these stories may claim to possess either distinction of technique alone, or more frequently, I am glad to say, a persuasive sense of life in them to which a reader responds with some part of his own experience. Stories included in this group are indicated in the year-book index by a single asterisk prefixed to the t.i.tle. The third group, which is composed of stories of still greater distinction, includes such narratives as may lay convincing claim to a second reading, because each of them has survived both tests, the test of substance and the test of form. Stories included in this group are indicated in the year-book index by two asterisks prefixed to the t.i.tle.

Finally, I have recorded the names of a small group of stories which possess, I believe, an even finer distinction--the distinction of uniting genuine substance and artistic form in a closely woven pattern with such sincerity that these stories may fairly claim a position in our literature. If all of these stories by American authors were republished, they would not occupy more s.p.a.ce than six average novels.

My selection of them does not imply the critical belief that they are great stories. It is simply to be taken as meaning that I have found the equivalent of six volumes worthy of republication among all the stories published during 1917. These stories are indicated in the year-book index by three asterisks prefixed to the t.i.tle, and are listed in the special "Rolls of Honor." In compiling these lists, I have permitted no personal preference or prejudice to influence my judgment consciously for or against a story. To the t.i.tles of certain stories, however, in the American "Roll of Honor," an asterisk is prefixed, and this asterisk, I must confess, reveals in some measure a personal preference.

It is from this final short list that the stories reprinted in this volume have been selected.

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.

The Yearbook for 1917 contains three new features. The Roll of Honor of American Short Stories includes a short biographical sketch of each author; a selection from the volumes of short stories published during the past year is reviewed at some length; and, in response to numerous requests, a list of American magazines publis.h.i.+ng short stories, with their editorial addresses, has been compiled.

Wilbur Daniel Steele and Katharine Fullerton Gerould are still at the head of their craft. But during the past year the ten published stories by Maxwell Struthers Burt and Charles Caldwell Dobie seem to promise a future in our literature of equal importance to the later work of these writers. Sherwood Anderson and Waldo Frank emerge as writers with a great deal of importance to say, although they have not yet fully mastered the art of saying it. The three new short story writers who show most promise are Gertrude Nafe and Thomas Beer, whose first stories appeared in the Century Magazine during 1917, and Elizabeth Stead Taber, whose story, "The Scar," when it appeared in the Seven Arts, attracted much favorable comment. Edwina Stanton Babc.o.c.k and Lee Foster Hartman have both published memorable stories, and "The Interval," which was Vincent O'Sullivan's sole contribution to an American periodical during 1917, compels us to wonder why an artist, for whom men of such widely different temperaments as Lionel Johnson, Remy de Gourmont, and Edward Garnett had high critical esteem, finds the American public so indifferent to his art.

Addison Lewis has published during the past year a series of stories in Reedy's Mirror which have more of O. Henry's magic than the thousand writers who have endeavored to imitate him to the everlasting injury of American literature. Frederick Stuart Greene, in "The Bunker Mouse" and "Molly McGuire, Fourteen," shows marked literary development, and reinforces my belief that in him we have an important new story-teller.

I suppose the best war story of the year is "The Flying Teuton," by Alice Brown, soon to be reprinted in book form.

I do not know whether it is an effect of the war or not, but during 1917, even more than during 1916, American magazines have been almost absolutely devoid of humor. Save for Irvin S. Cobb, on whom the mantle of Mark Twain has surely fallen, and for Seumas...o...b..ien, whom Mr. Dooley must envy, I have found American fiction to be sufficiently solemn and imperturbable.

I need not emphasize again the fine art of Fannie Hurst. Two years ago Mr. Howells stated more truly than I can the significance of her work.

Comparing her with two other contemporaries, he wrote: "Miss Fannie Hurst shows the same artistic quality, the same instinct for reality, the same confident recognition of the superficial cheapness and commonness of the stuff she handles; but in her stories she also attests the right to be named with them for the gift of penetrating to the heart of life. No one with the love of the grotesque which is the American portion of the human tastes or pa.s.sions, can fail of his joy in the play of the obvious traits and motives of her Hebrew comedy, but he will fail of something precious if he does not sound the depths of true and beautiful feeling which underlies the comedy."

A similar distinction marks Edna Ferber's story ent.i.tled "The Gay Old Dog."

Of the English short story writers who have published during the past year in American periodicals, Mr. Galsworthy has presented the most evenly distinguished work. Hardly second to his best are the six stories by J. D. Beresford and D. H. Lawrence, both well known realists of the younger generation. Stacy Aumonier has continued the promise of "The Friends" with three new stories written in the same key. Although the vein of his talent is a narrow one, it reveals pure gold. Good Housekeeping has published three war stories by an Englishwoman, I. A.

R. Wylie, which I should have coveted for this book had they been by an American author. But perhaps the best English short story of the year in an American magazine was "The Coming of the Terror," by Arthur Machen, since republished in book form.

Elsewhere I have discussed at some length the more important volumes of short stories published during the year. "A Munster Twilight," by Daniel Corkery is alone sufficient to mark a notable literary year. And "The Echo of Voices," by Richard Curle is hardly second to it. Yet the year has seen the publication of at least three other books by English authors who are new to the reading public. Thomas Burke, Caradoc Evans, and Arthur Machen have added permanent contributions to English literature.

In "A Handbook on Story Writing," Dr. Blanche Colton Williams has written the first definitive textbook on the subject. Its many predecessors have either been content to deal with narrow branches in the same field, or have exploited quite frankly and shamelessly the commercial possibilities of story writing as a cheap trade. Dr.

Williams's book will not be in all likelihood superseded for many years to come, and the effects of her work are already to be seen in the short stories of many established writers.

In the death of Edward Thomas, England has lost a rare artist who, in his particular field, was only rivalled by Richard Jefferies.

During the past year the Seven Arts and the Ma.s.ses have ceased publication. The Craftsman, which ceased publication a year ago, has been succeeded by the Touchstone, which is already beginning to print many interesting stories; and to the list of magazines which publish short stories must now be welcomed the Bookman.

As it has been my happiness in past years to a.s.sociate this annual with the names of Benjamin Rosenblatt and Richard Matthews Hallet, whose stories, "Zelig" and "Making Port," seemed to me respectively the best short stories of 1915 and 1916, so it is my pleasure and honor this year to dedicate the best that I have found in the American magazines as the fruit of my labors to Wilbur Daniel Steele, who has contributed to American literature, preeminently in "Ching, Ching, Chinaman," and almost as finely in "White Hands" and "The Woman At Seven Brothers,"

three stories which take their place for finality, to the best of my belief, in the great English line.

EDWARD J. O'BRIEN.

SOUTH YARMOUTH, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS, December 23, 1917.

THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1917

NOTE. The twenty stories which follow are arranged in the alphabetical order of their authors' names. This arrangement does not imply any precedence in merit of particular stories.

THE EXCURSION[2]

[Note 2: Copyright, 1917, by The Pictorial Review Company.

Copyright, 1918, by Edwina Stanton Babc.o.c.k.]