#The Golden Bird and Other Sketches#, by _Dorothy Eastern_, with a foreword by _John Galsworthy_ (Alfred A. Knopf). These forty short sketches of Sussex and of France are rendered deftly with a faithful objectivity of manner which has not barred out the essential poetry of their substance. These pictures are lightly touched with a quiet brooding significance, as if they had been seen at twilight moments in a dream world in which human relationships had been partly forgotten. They are frankly impressionistic, except for the group of French stories, in which Miss Easton has sought more definitely to interpret character. The danger of this form is a certain preciosity which the author has skilfully evaded, and the influence of Mr. Galsworthy is nowhere too clearly apparent. I recommend the volume as one of the best English books which has come to us during the past year. #My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People#, by _Caradoc Evans_ (Harcourt, Brace and Howe). In his third collection of stories, Mr. Evans has for the most part forsaken his study of the Cardigan Bay peasant for the London Welsh, and although his style preserves the same stark biblical notation as before, it seems less suited to record the ironies of an industrial civilization. Allowing for this, and for Mr. Evans' bent towards an unduly acid estimate of human nature, it must be confessed that these stories have a certain permanent literary quality, most successful in "Earthbred," "Joseph's House," and "A Widow Woman." These three collections make it tolerably clear that Mr. Evans will find his true medium in the novel, where an epic breadth of material is at hand to fit his epic breadth of speech. #Tatterdemalion#, by _John Galsworthy_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). This volume contains the ripest product of Mr. Galsworthy's short story art during the past seven years. Its range is very wide, and in these twenty-three stories, we have the best of the mystical war legends from "The Grey Angel" to "Cafard," the gentle irony of "The Recruit" and "Defeat," and the gracious vision of "Spindleberries," "The Nightmare Child," and "Buttercup-Night." Nowhere in the volume do we find the slight touch of sentimentality which has marred the strength of Mr. Galsworthy's later novels, but everywhere very quietly realised pictures of a golden age which is still possible to his imagination, despite the harsh conflict with material realities which his art has often encountered. Perhaps the best story in the present collection is "Cafard," where Mr. Galsworthy has almost miraculously succeeded in extracting the last emotional content out of a situation in which a single false touch of sentiment would have wrecked his story.