What must have begun as a doubtful experiment and been continued only because it was a triumphantly demonstrated success has been the serial publication for the great average American public of my selection of the best twenty-one stories published in 1914. The _Illustrated Sunday Magazine_ has evidently justified its daring, and the bold pioneering of its editor, Mr. Hiram M. Greene, to judge from the host of letters I have received from readers who have not read the best magazines in the past because, as many of them state, they feared that they were too "high-brow," but who have been convinced, by the introduction to the best contemporary fiction afforded them weekly in the supplement to their Sunday newspaper, that such periodicals as _Harper's Magazine_ and _Scribner's Magazine_ have many qualities to commend them to the untrained reader. All this serves to illustrate my point that the commercial short story is not preferred by that imaginary norm of editors known as "the reading public." If adequate means are employed to allay the average man's suspicions of literature and to introduce him painlessly to the best that our writers are creating, my experience shows absolutely that he will respond heartily and make higher standards possible by his support. We have scarcely begun to build our democracy of letters. Because an American publisher has been found who shares my faith in the democratic future of the American short story as something by no means ephemeral, this year-book of American fiction is assured of annual publication for several years. It is my wish annually to dedicate whatever there may be of faith and hope in each volume to the writer of short stories whose work during the year has brought to me the most definite message of idealism. It is accordingly my privilege this year to associate the present volume with the name of Benjamin Rosenblatt, who has contributed in "Zelig" a noble addition to American literature. EDWARD J. O'BRIEN SOUTH YARMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS Twelfth Night, 1916 THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1915 THE WATER-HOLE[1] BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT From _Scribner's Magazine_ [1] Copyright, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1916, by Maxwell Struthers Burt.