SEATON'S AUNT. By Walter de la Mare (From _The London Mercury_) THE REAPER. By Dorothy Easton (From _The English Review_) THE SONG. By May Edginton (From _Lloyd's Story Magazine_) A HEDONIST. By John Galsworthy (From _Pears' Annual_, 1921 and _The Century Magazine_) THE BAT AND BELFRY INN. By Alan Graham (From _The Story-Teller_) THE LIE. By Holloway Horn (From _The Blue Magazine_) A GIRL IN IT. By Rowland Kenney (From _The New Age_) THE BACKSTAIRS OF THE MIND. By Rosamond Langbridge (From _The Manchester Guardian_) THE BIRTH OF A MASTERPIECE. By Lucas Malet (From _The Story-Teller_) "GENIUS." By Elinor Mordaunt (From _Hutchinson's Magazine_ and _The Century Magazine_) THE DEVIL TO PAY. By Max Pemberton (From _The Story-Teller_) EMPTY ARMS. By Roland Pertwee (From _The Ladies' Home Journal_) LENA WRACE. By May Sinclair (From _The Dial_) THE DICE THROWER. By Sidney Southgate (From _Colour_) THE STRANGER WOMAN. By G.B. Stern (From _John o'London's Weekly_) THE WOMAN WHO SAT STILL. By Parry Truscott (From _Colour_) MAJOR WILBRAHAM. By Hugh Walpole (From _The Chicago Tribune_) THE YEARBOOK OF THE BRITISH AND IRISH SHORT STORY, JULY, 1921, TO JUNE, 1922 Abbreviations Addresses of Periodicals Publishing Short Stories The Roll of Honour A List of Other Distinctive Stories Articles on the Short Story in British Periodicals Volumes of Short Stories Published in Great Britain and Ireland INTRODUCTION When Edward J. O'Brien asked me to cooperate with him in choosing each year's best English short stories, to be published as a companion volume to his annual selection of the best American short stories, I had not realized that at the end of my arduous task, which has involved the reading of many hundreds of stories in the English magazines of an entire year, I should find myself asking the simple question: What is a short story? I do not suppose that a hundred years ago such a question could have occurred to any one. Then all that a story was and could be was implied in the simple phrase: "Tell me a story...." We all know what that means. How many stories published today would stand this simple if final test of being told by word of mouth? I doubt whether fifty per cent would. Surely the universality of the printing press and the linotype machine have done something to alter the character of literature, just as the train and the telephone have done not a little to abolish polite correspondence. Most stories of today are to be read, not told. Hence great importance must be attached to the manner of writing; in some instances, the whole effect of a modern tale is dependent on the manner of presentation. Henry James is, possibly, an extreme example. Has any one ever attempted to tell a tale in the Henry James manner by word of mouth, even when the manner pretends to be conversational? I, for one, have yet to experience this pleasure, though I have listened to a good many able and experienced tale-tellers in my time.