#When the King Loses His Head, and Other Stories#, by _Leonid Andreyev._
Translated by _Archibald J. Wolfe_ (International Book Publishing
Company), and #Modern Russian Classics.# Introduction by _Isaac Goldberg_
(The Four Seas Company). In previous years I have called attention to
other selections of Andreyev's stories. The present collection includes
the best from the other volumes, with some new material. "Judas
Iscariot" and "Lazarus" are the best of the prose poems. "Ben-Tobith,"
"The Marseillaise," and "Dies Iræ" are the most memorable of his very
short stories, while the volume also includes "When The King Loses His
Head," and a less-known novelette entitled "Life of Father Vassily." The
volume entitled "Modern Russian Classics" includes five short stories by
Andreyev, Sologub, Artzibashev, Chekhov, and Gorky.
#Prometheus: the Fall of the House of Limón: Sunday Sunlight: Poetic
Novels of Spanish Life#, by _Ramón Pérez de Ayala_, Prose translations by
_Alice P. Hubbard_: Poems done into English by _Grace Hazard Conkling_
(E. P. Dutton & Co.). Señor Pérez de Ayala has achieved in these three
stories what may be quite frankly regarded as a literary form. They do
not conform to a single rule of the short story as we have been taught
to know it. In fact, this is a pioneer book which opens up a new field.
The stories have no plot, no climax, no direct characterization, and at
first sight no plan. Presently it appears that the author's apparent
episodic treatment of his substance has a special unity of its own woven
around the spiritual relations of his heroes. It is hard to judge of an
author's style in translation, but the brilliant coloring of his
pictures is apparent from this English version. The nearest analogue in
English are the fantasies of Norman Douglas, but Pérez de Ayala has a
much more profoundly realized philosophy of life. The poems which serve
as interludes in these stories, curiously enough, add to the unity of
the action.
#The Last Lion, and Other Tales#, by _Vicente Blasco Ibáñez_, with an
Introduction by _Mariano Joaquin Lorente_ (The Four Seas Company). The
present vogue of Señor Blasco Ibáñez is more sentimental than justified,
but in "Luxury" he has written an admirable story, and the other five
stories have a certain distinction of coloring.
#The Bishop, and Other Stories#, and #The Chorus Girl, and Other Stories#,
by _Anton Chekhov_; translated from the Russian by _Constance Garnett_
(The Macmillan Company). I have called attention to previous volumes in
this edition of Chekhov from time to time. These two new additions to
the series carry the English version of the complete tales two-thirds of
the way toward completion. Chekhov is one of the three short story
writers of the world indispensable to every fellow craftsman, and these
nineteen stories are drawn for the most part from the later and more
mature period of his work.
#The Surprises of Life#, by _Georges Clémenceau_; translated by _Grace
Hall_ (Doubleday, Page & Company). Although this volume shows a gift of
crisp narrative and sharply etched portraiture, it is chiefly important
as a revelation of M. Clémenceau's state of mind. Had it been called to
the attention of Mr. Wilson before he went to Paris, the course of
international diplomacy might have been rather different. These
twenty-five stories and sketches one and all reveal a sneering
scepticism about human nature and an utter denial of moral values. From
a technical point of view, "The Adventure of My Curé" is a successful
story.
#Tales of My Native Town#, by _Gabriele D'Annunzio_; translated by _G.
Mantellini_, with an Introduction by _Joseph Hergesheimer_ (Doubleday,
Page & Company). This anthology drawn from various volumes of Signor
D'Annunzio's stories gives the American a fair bird's-eye view of the
various aspects of his work. These twelve portraits by the Turner of
corruption have a severe logic of their own which may pass for being
classical. As diploma pieces they are incomparable, but as renderings of
life they carry no sense of conviction. Mr. Hergesheimer's introduction
is a more or less unsuccessful special plea. While it is perfectly true
that the author has achieved what he set out to do, these stories
already seem old-fashioned, and as years go on will be read, if at all,
for their landscapes only.
#Military Servitude and Grandeur#, by _Alfred de Vigny_; translated by
_Frances Wilson Huard_ (George H. Doran Company). It is curious that
this volume should have waited so long for a translator. Alfred de Vigny
was an early nineteenth century forerunner of Barbusse and Duhamel, and
this record of the Napoleonic wars is curiously analogous to the books
of these later men. I call attention to it here because it includes
"Laurette," which is one of the great French short stories.
#An Honest Thief, and Other Stories#, by _Fyodor Dostoevsky_; translated
from the Russian by _Constance Garnett_ (The Macmillan Company). This is
the eleventh volume in the first collected English edition of
Dostoevsky's works. The great Russian novelist was not a consummate
technician when he wrote short stories, but the massive epic sweep of
his genius clothed the somewhat inorganic substance of his tales with a
reality which is masterly in the title story, in "An Unpleasant
Predicament," and in "Another Man's Wife." The volume includes among
other stories "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man," which, though little
known, is the key to the philosophy of his greater novels.
#Civilization#, 1914-1917, by _Georges Duhamel_; translated by _E. S.
Brooks_ (The Century Co.). This volume shares with Élie Faure's "La
Sainte Face" first place among the volumes of permanent literature
produced in France during the war. With more subtle and restrained
artistry than M. Barbusse, the author has portrayed the simple
chronicles of many of his comrades. He employs only the plainest
notation of speech, with an economy not unlike that of Maupassant, and
the indictment is the more terrible because of this emphasis of
understatement. Before the war, M. Duhamel was known as a competent and
somewhat promising poet and dramatist, and he was one of the few to whom
the war brought an ampler endowment rather than a numbing silence.
#Czecho-Slovak Stories#, translation by _Ŝárka B. Hrbkova_ (Duffield
and Company). I trust that this volume will prove a point of departure
for a series of books each devoted to the work of a separate
Czecho-Slovak master. Certainly the work of Jan Neruda, Svatopluk
Čech, and Caroline SvĚtlá, to name no others, ranks with the best
of the Russian masters, and the reader is compelled to speculate as to
how many more equally fine writers remain unknown to him. For such
stories as these can only come out of a long and conscious tradition of
art, and the greater part of these stories are drawn from volumes
published during the last half century. The volume contains an admirable
historical and critical introduction, and adequate biographies and
bibliographies of the authors included.
#Serenus, and Other Stories of the Past and Present#, by _Jules Lemaître_;
translated by "_Penguin_" (_A. W. Evans_) (London: Selwyn & Blount).
Although this volume has not yet been published in the United States, it
is one of the few memorable short story books of the season, and should
readily find a publisher over here. Anatole France has prophesied that
it will stand out in the history of the thought of the nineteenth
century, just as to-day "Candide" or "Zadig" stands out in that of the
eighteenth. These fourteen stories are selected from about four times
that number, and a complete Lemaître would be as valuable in English as
the new translation of Anatole France. The present version is
faultlessly rendered by an English stylist who has sought to set down
the exact shade of the critic's meaning.
#Tales of Mystery and Horror#, by _Maurice Level_; translated from the
French by _Alys Eyre Macklin_, with an Introduction by _Henry B. Irving_
(Robert M. McBride & Co.). Mr. Irving's introduction rather overstates
M. Level's case. These stories are not literature, but their hard
polished technique is as competent as that of Melville Davisson Post,
and I suppose that these two men have carried Poe's technique as far as
it can be carried with talent. The stories are frankly melodramatic, and
wring the last drop of emotion and sentiment out of each situation
presented. I think the volume will prove valuable to students of short
story construction, and there is no story which does not arrest the
attention of the reader.
#The Story of Gotton Connixloo#, followed by #Forgotten#, by _Camille
Mayran_; translated by _Van Wyck Brooks_ (E.P. Dutton & Company). Mr.
Brooks' translation of these two stories in the tradition of Flaubert
have been a labor of love. They will not attract a large public, but the
art of this Belgian writer is flawless, and worthy of his master. Out of
the simplest material he has extracted an exquisite spiritual essence,
and held it up quietly so as to reflect every aspect of its value. If
the first of these two stories is the most completely rounded from a
technical point of view, I think that the second points the way toward
his future development. He presents his characters more directly, and
achieves his revelation through dialogue rather than personal statement.
#Short Stories from the Spanish#; Englished by _Charles B. McMichael_
(Boni and Liveright, Inc.). The present volume contains seven short
stories by Rubén Dario, Jacinto Octavio Picón, and Leopoldo Alas. They
are wretchedly translated, but even in their present form one can divine
the art of "The Death of the Empress of China" by the Nicaraguan Rubén
Dario, and "After the Battle" by the Spaniard Jacinto Octavio Picón. The
other stories are of unequal value, so far as we can judge from Mr.
McMichael's translation.
#The Fairy Spinning Wheel, and the Tales It Spun#, by _Catulle Mendès_;
translated by _Thomas J. Vivian_ (The Four Seas Company). It was a happy
thought to reprint this translation of M. Mendès' fairy tales which has
been out of print for many years. It is probably the only work of its
once renowned author which survives the passage of time. Here he has
entered the child's mind and deftly presented a series of legends which
suggest more than they state. Their substance is slight enough, but each
has a certain symbolic value, and the poetry of M. Mendès' style has
been successfully transferred to the English version.
#Temptations#, by _David Pinski_; translated by _Isaac Goldberg_
(Brentano's). We have already come to know what a keen analyst America
has in Mr. Pinski from the translations of his plays which have been
published. Here he is much less interested in the surface movement of
plot than in the relentless search for motive. To his Yiddish public he
seems perhaps the best of short story writers who write in his tongue,
and certainly he can hold his own with the best of his contemporaries in
all countries. He has the universal note as few English writers may
claim it, and he stands apart from his creation with absolute
detachment. His work, together with that of Asch, Aleichem, Perez, and
one or two others establishes Yiddish as a great literary tongue. A
further series of these tales are promised if the present volume meets
with the response which it deserves.
#Russian Short Stories#, edited by _Harry C. Schweikert_ (Scott, Foresman
and Company). This is a companion volume to Mr. Schweikert's excellent
collection of French short stories, and ranges over a wide field. From
Pushkin to Kuprin his selection gives a fair view of most of the Russian
masters, and the collection includes a valuable historical and critical
introduction, with biographical notes, and a critical apparatus for the
student of short story technique. It is of special educational
importance as the only volume in the field. In the next edition I
suggest that Sologub should be represented for the sake of completeness.
#Iolanthe's Wedding#, by _Hermann Sudermann_; translated by _Adèle S.
Seltzer_ (Boni and Liveright, Inc.). This collection of four minor works
by Sudermann contains two excellent stories, one of which is full of
folk quality and a kindly irony, and the other more akin to the nervous
art of Arthur Schnitzler. "The Woman Who Was His Friend" and "The
Gooseherd" are less important, but of considerable technical interest.
#Short Stories from the Balkans#; translated by _Edna Worthley Underwood_
(Marshall Jones Company). This volume should be set beside the
collection of "Czecho-Slovak Stories," which I have mentioned on an
earlier page. Here will be found further stories by Jan Neruda and
Svatopluk Čech, together with a remarkable group of stories by
Rumanian, Serbian, Croatian, and Hungarian authors. Neruda emerges as
the greatest artist of them all, and one of the greatest artists in
Europe, but special attention should be called also to the Czech writer
Vrchlický, the Rumanian Caragiale, and the Hungarian Mikszáth. The
translation seems competently done.
#Modern Greek Stories#; translated by _Demetra Vaka_ and _Aristides
Phoutrides_ (Duffield and Company). While this collection reveals no
such undoubted master as Jan Neruda, it is an extremely interesting
introduction to an equally unknown literature. Seven of the nine stories
are of great literary value, and perhaps the best of these is "Sea" by
A. Karkavitsas. Romaic fiction still bears the marks of a young
tradition, and each new writer would seem to be compelled to strike out
more or less completely for himself. Consequently it is necessary to
allow more than usual for technical inadequacy, but the substance of
most of these stories is sufficiently remarkable to justify us in
wishing a further introduction to Romaic literature.