,. THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1926 (American). (Cape. 7s.
6d.)—Here we have twenty short stories, all collected from the better type of American magazine. Apart from their individual excellence, they are important because they show a remarkable change that is taking place in the short story ; to-day these are less tales than studies. A few years ago psychology was left to the novelist. Now, the short story writer is developing an entirely new art and his characters arc no longer convenient puppets who may be plunged into love and adventure to enliven a reader's train journey. Every One of the stories in this collection have one thing in common : they arc all character studies, and all actions and events • result from the personality of these characters. The worn-out ,machinery of coincidence, eccentric wills and love at first sight has been replaced by the delicate mechanism of the human mind. Except for this common similarity, the stories are varied enough and they are nearly all first class. Perhaps the best is Grace Sartwell Mason's "The First Stone," re- printed from Harper's Magazine. It describes the love of a -small boy for a bad woman" who befriended him. There came a day when the villagers hounded his friend from her home. Even the children threw stones. The teller of the tale relates his feelings as he looked at his own small hand. "There was dirt on the palm of it, where the muddy stone had been. . . . I was as empty as a house for rent. God had gone out of me with that stone."
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