The best short stories of 1918, and the yearbook of the American short story
General
The best short stories of 1918, and the yearbook of the American short story
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories -- 20th century -- Bibliography; Short stories -- 20th century -- Indexes; Short stories, American
14. _The Irish of It_, by _Cornelia Throop Geer_ (Atlantic Monthly).
This little study, which is hardly more than a dialogue, is inimitable
in its deft humorous characterization. It is good news to be able to
report that Miss Geer is planning a volume of stories about these Irish
boys and girls whose poetry of thought and action is so coaxing.
15. _Imagination_, by _Gordon Hall Gerould_ (Scribner’s Magazine).
Captain Gerould has taken his subject quietly and handled it with a
thoughtful sense of its possibilities. This study of a successful writer
of best sellers, with his egregious solemnity and lack of imagination,
is delightfully rendered. The subtlety of the author’s psychology will
not blind the reader to its essential truth.
16. _Marchpane_, by _Katharine Fullerton Gerould_ (Harper’s Magazine).
Mrs. Gerould has only published one short story this year, but
fortunately it ranks among her best. It is written with all her usual
close observation of abnormal psychological situations. The art of few
stories is concealed so successfully, and the story is one of which
Henry James would have been proud.
17. _In Maulmain Fever-Ward_, by _George Gilbert_. This story, which
appeared in a Chicago magazine, is the first of an unusual series of
stories dealing with East Indian life. It is full of a wild poetry of
speech and action, set against a background of almost oppressive natural
beauty. I think that the story would have gained by a little more
reticence, but the groundwork is firm and the detail admirably rendered.
18. “_Beloved Husband_” (Harper’s Magazine) and 19. “_Poor Ed_” (The
Liberator), by _Susan Glaspell_. Susan Glaspell has already won a high
reputation in three equally difficult fields, those of the novel, the
drama, and the short story. Considering her as a short-story writer
only, we may say that these two stories reflect the best that she has
done, with the possible exception of the story entitled “A Jury of Her
Peers,” which I reprinted in “The Best Short Stories of 1917.” Both are
studies in suppressed ambition, set forth with a gentle humor which does
not fail by virtue of overstress. Susan Glaspell is at her best in “Poor
Ed,” a study in the triumph of failure.
20. _Sinjinn Surviving_, by _Armistead C. Gordon_ (Harper’s Magazine).
This story is one more addition to Mr. Gordon’s studies of Virginia
negro plantation life. It introduces us once more to Ommirandy and Uncle
Jonas, and is a quiet idyl of the life that survived in Virginia after
the fall of the Confederacy.
21. _Even So_, by _Charles Boardman Hawes_ (The Bellman). The art of Mr.
Hawes has developed so quietly during the past few years that it has not
attracted the attention it richly deserves. This study of life and death
many years ago in the Southern Seas recaptures much of the magic of the
old sailing-ship days when the _Helen of Troy_ and other American
clippers came bravely into port. The story has a fine legendary quality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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