For some years Mr. Edward J. O'Brien has published his
selections of the best short stories' of the year—one velume
devoted to England and one to America. This year he ' printed his selection (Cape, 7s. 6d.) within the same covers, with the idea that the comparison between English and American stories which the attentive reader will thus be obliged to make will reveal to him, if he is not aware of it already, the superiority of the American product. " Is not the American short . story," .enquires -Mr. O'Brien, " much the more memorable, much the more vital I." The answer is— at all events on the evidence of this collection—that it is not. The best story in the book is unquestionably that by Mr. H. E. Bates, and those by Mr. James Stern, Mr. Bearden Conneer, Mr. Arthur Calder-Marshall,- Mr.- Stephen. Spender, and Mr. Ronald 'Ansley- are as good as anything which 'the American contingent has to offer. Some of the American stories—notably those by Mr. William .March, Mr. Louis Mamet and Mr. Benjamin Appel—are certainly, to use Mr. O'Brien's word, memorable," but in a comparison between the best stories in the book from each side of the Atlantic they. nevertheless do not establish the essential superiority of the American. NOr does a coinparikin between the less successful stories assist' Much. The difference between the two prevalent conventions—to put it broadly, the English of good writing about nothing, and the American-of bad writing about something—is only .the difference between two ways of not writing a successful short story.
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