One of the finest things in the Best Short Stories
of 1929 : America (Cape, 7s. Rd.) is the biography of a champion racing caterpillar, Red Peril. He was the fastest caterpillar in seven counties, winning scores of races, and a good many dollars for his owner, but there was one queer thing about him : he could not stand butter—however we do not wish to spoil good sport by telling how this celebrated insect's doom was encompassed. The story is excellent fun : but it is more than that. It is the work of an artist of the short story who knows very well what he is about ; and if the book should not be considered worth the price for this alone, there are at least three other tales here of sufficient originality and distinction to make it thoroughly good value. This anthology editor, Mr. Edward O'Brien, also, by the way (like Mr. Moult) notes an increasing public appreciation of the art in which he specialises. " Fifteen years ago," he writes, " it was impossible to find more than one or two stories in a year's file of American periodicals which revealed literary gifts of a more than technical order. . . To-day such men as Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, Ring Larclner and Morley Callaghan have educated a considerable public sufficiently for it to distinguish between ready-made stories and works of art."
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