_The Seven That Were Hanged_, by _Leonid Andreyev_ (Boni & Liveright).
These two sombre studies in death rank among the masterpieces of modern
Russian literature. “The Seven That Were Hanged” is a study in the human
reactions of seven different men between their condemnation and
execution. Andreyev is a master of character, relentless in his probing,
inevitable in his conclusions. “The Red Laugh,” which is also included
in this volume, is an unforgettable study of the horrors of warfare.
_Lazarus_, by _Leonid Andreyev_, and _The Gentleman from San Francisco_,
by _Ivan Bunin_, translated by _Abraham Yarmolinsky_ (The Stratford
Company). These stories, published together in one volume, are in vivid
contrast. In “Lazarus” Andreyev has written one of his two great prose
poems, relating how Lazarus revealed the mystery of the grave. “The
Gentleman from San Francisco” has poetry too, but it is essentially an
ironic study of the artificial values of commercial prosperity.
_We Others: Stories of Fate, Love, and Pity_, by _Henri Barbusse_,
translated by _Fitzwater Wray_ (E. P. Dutton & Company). This collection
of early stories by Monsieur Barbusse would have been important even if
the author was not already known to us by “Under Fire” and “The
Inferno.” It includes forty-five short stories of remarkable technique
in small compass, sounding almost every note of the human comedy and
tragedy with the utmost economy of means and finish of construction. It
is perhaps not an accident that the first two stories are the best, but
the collection is unusually even and seems sure of reasonable
permanence.
_Czech Folk Tales_, selected and translated by _Josef Baudis_ (The
Macmillan Company). This is probably the best volume of fairy stories
published this year and should interest students of folk lore and the
general reader as well as children. There is a wild poetry in these
brief tales, which is well rendered in Dr. Baudis’s translation.
_Tales from Boccaccio_ (The Stratford Company). It was a happy thought
of the publishers to select these seven stories at which the most
puritan cannot carp, and to present them to us in such an attractive
form. An old translation is used whose style faithfully mirrors that of
Boccaccio.
_The Wife_ (The Macmillan Company), _The Witch_ (The Macmillan Company),
and _Nine Humorous Tales_ (The Stratford Company), by _Anton Chekhov_.
Two new volumes have been added this year to Mrs. Garnett’s admirable
edition of Chekhov. It is now universally admitted that Chekhov ranks
with Poe and de Maupassant as one of the three supreme masters of the
short story. “The Wife” contains at least two of Chekhov’s masterpieces:
“A Dreary Story” and “Gooseberries.” With these two stories I should
rank “Gusev” and “In the Ravine.” The little book issued by the
Stratford Company reprints nine of Chekhov’s less familiar stories, some
of which cannot yet be obtained in English elsewhere.
_Peasant Tales of Russia_, by _V. I. Nemirovitch-Dantchenko_, translated
by _Claud Field_ (Robert M. McBride & Company). These four poetic
stories by one of the less known Russian masters are tragic studies of
human conflict, softened by pity and a deep-rooted religious belief.
They are admirably translated in a style which reflects much of the
poetry of the original. “The Deserted Mine” is one of the great short
stories of the world.
_White Nights, and Other Stories_, by _Fyodor Dostoevsky_, translated by
_Constance Garnett_ (The Macmillan Company). These seven short stories
and novelettes range over a period of more than twenty years in
Dostoevsky’s career. “White Nights,” which is one of his earliest works,
is a poem of young love and its effect on solitude and spiritual
isolation. “A Faint Heart,” which was written seven or eight years
afterwards, is a study of the will and morbid melancholy. It anticipates
many of the findings of modern psychiatry. “A Little Hero,” written
immediately afterwards, is a kind of autobiography, and sheds much light
on Dostoevsky’s early life. But “Notes from Underground” is the
masterpiece of the book, and is one of the chief clues to Dostoevsky’s
own philosophy.
_Jewish Fairy Tales_, translated by _Gerald Friedlander_ (Bloch
Publishing Company). This collection of eight stories, translated from
the Talmud, Yalkut, and other sources, has been wisely selected to
cultivate the imagination of Jewish children, but should prove of much
interest to the general reader who is likely to be unfamiliar with most
of these legends.
_Taras Bulba, and Other Tales_, by _Nikolai V. Gogol_ (E. P. Dutton &
Company). “Taras Bulba” and five of Gogol’s best short stories are now
added to Everyman’s Library. The title story is the national epic of
Little Russia, and has a Homeric quality of spaciousness, dignity, and
imagination which places it among the world’s great masterpieces. The
other stories show Gogol in many moods, but chiefly as Russia’s greatest
humorous writer.
_Creatures That Once Were Men_ (Boni & Liveright) and _Stories of the
Steppe_ (The Stratford Company), by “_Maxim Gorky_.” These two volumes
are in sufficient contrast to one another. The former contains five
stories of life among the submerged classes of Russia, which are nobly
told with simplicity, imaginative power, and sceptical philosophy.
“Stories of the Steppe” contains three prose poems full of a wild gypsy
poetry.
_Men in War_, by _Andreas Latsko_ (Boni & Liveright). These six
realistic studies of warfare by an Austrian whose book has been
suppressed in his own country are a terrific indictment of the
militaristic spirit which has brought on the great conflict and
continued it relentlessly for four years. It shares with Barbusse’s
“Under Fire” the distinction of being one of the two masterpieces
written by combatants during the last four years, and the spirit of the
two books will be found to be essentially the same.
_Tales of Wartime France_, by Contemporary French Writers. Translated by
_William L. McPherson_ (Dodd, Mead & Company). This anthology of thirty
war stories is well selected, and shows that the war has produced many
excellent French stories. One and all, they illustrate the spirit of the
nation, and show an artistic reticence which contrasts favorably with
the work of English and American writers.
_French Short Stories_, Edited for School Use, by _Harry C. Schweikert_
(Scott, Foresman and Company). This collection of eighteen stories for
the most part follows conventional lines, but the choice is excellent
and introduces the reader to several unfamiliar stories by Coppée,
Bazin, Claretie, and Lemaître. The critical apparatus is competent, and
the biographical notes should prove useful.
_The Spanish Fairy Book_, by _Gertrudis Segovia_, translated by
_Elisabeth Vernon Quinn_ (Frederick A. Stokes Company). These eight
fairy stories show much imagination, a pleasant unpretentious style, and
a fine sense of form. While written for quite young children, they also
possess much folk lore value.
_Serbian Fairy Tales_, translated by _Elodie L. Mijatovich_ (Robert M.
McBride & Co.). I would rank this with Dr. Baudis’s “Czech Folk Tales”
as one of the two best books of fairy tales published this year. Like
Ispirescu’s collection of Roumanian stories it seems to bear traces of a
secret animistic doctrine disclosing the mystery of change, and to have
crystallized in literary form through centuries of traditional
storytelling.
_Mashi, and Other Stories_, by _Sir Rabindranath Tagore_ (The Macmillan
Company). Of these stories it is difficult to speak without undue
enthusiasm. With admirable economy of means, Tagore has succeeded in
conveying the utmost subtlety of nostalgic remembrance, and the sensuous
beauty of shrouded landscape in which he projects his figures sustains
profound emotional revelation without undue tightening of the literary
fabric. His literary method is a strange one to us, but it might well be
the beginning of a new short story tradition in which an American writer
could find inspiration as fresh as the new impulse that the discovery of
Japanese prints brought to Whistler and others that followed him.
_Paulownia_: Seven Stories from Contemporary Japanese Writers,
translated by _Torao Taketomo_ (Duffield & Company). These stories
reveal a new world to us, as significant in its way as the world of
Tagore’s stories. Some of these Japanese writers have been influenced by
European models, but their spirit is essentially national, and springs
from an imaginative quality which it is hard for us at first to
recapture. All the stories have a finished art, and so has Mr. Torao
Taketomo’s translation.
_What Men Live By, and Other Stories_, by _Leo Tolstoi_, translated by
_L. and A. Maude_ (The Stratford Company). This collection includes four
familiar stories by Tolstoi chosen for their social doctrine. The format
of the book is pleasant, and the choice of stories excellent.