Phillips, Michael J., Back to Apple Harbor (_R. B._, Oct., 1926). Powel, Harford, Jr., The Finest Lie in the World (_Col._, Mch. 19). Singmaster, Elsie, Sandoe’s Pocket (_W. H. C._, Oct., 1926); Miss Glynn (_Col._, Oct. 9, 1926); The Christmas Guest (_P. R._, Dec., 1926); The Legacy (_D._, May). Toohey, John Peter, The Trouper (_Col._, Apr. 23). Way, Isabella, Sachet (_E._, July). Wetjen, Albert Richard, A Loyal Man (_Col._, Jan. 15). White, Owen P., The Simpleton (_Col._, Nov. 27, 1926). Williams, Ben Ames, Victory (_Col._, Apr. 30); Red Hair (_Col._, July 2). Worts, George F., Woman’s Work Is Never Done (_Col._, Mch. 19). The short story has known better seasons, says a reader who, moved by indigestion and nausea, forswears the magazine tale of to-day as food unfit. The trouble with this reader lies partly in his having the world too much with him, late and soon. He finds no recreation in reading contemporary fictionists, or fiction about the present of which he is integrally a part. He believes he laments the Stockton and Bunner model; rather he laments the day of Stockton and Bunner. This nostalgia for the dear, dead days that are no more demands a superfiction, a glorification of the past. The demand is satisfied best by fictive biography, which has never known a better season. Because the satiated reader has no desire for short stories, he should condemn them all no more than one who has eaten too many clams condemns all clams. Yet too many stories of to-day are like O. Henry’s clam shells “from which the succulent and vital inhabitants” have forever departed. A critical reader finds himself saying, “This tale was made on order from the editor,” or “So-and-so is writing under too great pressure; he is tired.” A disturbing fact is the absence of humour, for humour is the unfailing index to superabundance of vitality. Among hopeful signs may be mentioned, first, a number of new writers appearing in the better as well as the humbler magazines; several are represented in this volume. Second, from what has been called the incoherent left side and the technically correct right side, a new form may be emerging; I suggest tentatively “The Mold,” by Clarice Blake (_Century_, May), and “Sooth,” by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harper’s_, August). Third, the war story is slowly developing out of that emotion remembered in tranquillity which, on occasion, is as necessary to prose as to poetry. The period of recollection has produced good results, chiefly in the work of Thomas Beer, Thomas Boyd, Leonard Nason, and James Warner Bellah. Finally, a number of veterans are creating with undiminished vigour: Irvin S. Cobb, tales of the Tennessee River; Harris Dickson, reminiscences of Mississippi River gambling days; Booth Tarkington, adventures in the supernatural.