_The Scarecrow and Other Stories_, by _G. Ranger Wormser_ (E. P. Dutton & Company). These stories by Miss Wormser are the most interesting short story discovery of the year. They are subtle studies in unfamiliar regions of the spirit, and their vivid imaginative quality is not unlike that of Algernon Blackwood, though Miss Wormser’s style is somewhat more self-conscious. I believe that this volume heralds a remarkable future. II. _English and Irish Authors_ _The Tideway_, by “_John Ayscough_” (Benziger Brothers). This collection of stories has much of Henry Harland’s charm, with a more complete mastery of plot. These stories are, many of them, studies in social atmosphere, and if their substance is tenuous, Monsignor Bickerstaffe-Drew has made the most of it. _Johnny Pryde_, by _J. J. Bell_ (Fleming H. Revell Company). The dry merriment of this little book is infectious, and makes it a worthy successor to the best of Wee Macgreegor’s earlier adventures. _The Empty House_, _John Silence_, _The Listener_, and _The Lost Valley_, by _Algernon Blackwood_ (E. P. Dutton & Company). The present reprint of four of Algernon Blackwood’s earlier collections of short stories gives me the opportunity to call attention to four books for which I care more personally than for the short stories of any other English writer. No contemporary has continued the magic tradition of Keats and Coleridge more successfully than Mr. Blackwood, particularly in “The Listener” and “The Lost Valley.” These two books at least will last longer than any other volume of short stories by an English or American writer published this year. _The Watcher by the Threshold_, by _John Buchan_ (George H. Doran Company). Seven or eight years ago a remarkable book of animistic stories by a writer then unknown to me was issued in this country. It at once awakened my enthusiasm for the writer’s work, and I felt that an important new figure had come into view. But “The Moon Endureth” attracted almost no attention and has since been forgotten. Mr. Buchan has published other pleasant books since then but the present collection is the first to recapture something of the same beauty, and in recommending it cordially to the public I earnestly hope that Mr. Buchan’s publishers will find it possible to reissue “The Moon Endureth.” _Nights in London_, by _Thomas Burke_ (Henry Holt & Company). Strictly speaking, this is not a volume of short stories, but to those who greatly admired “Limehouse Nights” last year this volume will be found to hold the same fascination of style and to make clearer the human background out of which that book flowered.