The Best Short Stories 1934 [antikvár]

Ishould üke to suggest with becoming diffidence that the time has probably come when the English writer should pay a little more attention to American achievement. His traditional sense of form has very nearly used up his substance. He is so completely preoccupied with economy of effect, which is of course a virtue, that he is in danger of living parsimoniously. Would it not be possible for him to waste a little more of his substance? The prodigal son, no doubt, gave joy in heaven. Now the prodigal son was • obviously quite unsophisticated. Shall I be pressing the parable too far if I hint that it is high time that the English writer should begin to spend life a little more riotously and to stop counting his golden guineas of hoarded good form? Cosmopolitan critics in various countries are frankly more interested at present in American than in English fiction, yet American novels and short stories have very rough surfaces. Is it not because the younger American writers see life for the most part in the round that the American short story is of international interest and the English short story chiefly of insular interest? This year I have been tempted to try an experiment. The present collection sets side by side within the same covers the best English and the best American short stories which I have been able to find in periodicals during the past year. I appeal to the intellectual curiosity of the English public to compare the work of the two countries as exemplified in this book and to ask honestly this question: Is not the American short story much the more memorable, much the more vitai? This is a new situation. Five years ago the English short story was more memorable. The American short 9