especially with the type I have described as _A_. This is interesting,
since it evinces a healthy desire to get away from the banal facts of
one's standardized atmosphere, the atmosphere of suburbia. It may be
both a reaction and an escape, and may express a desire for a more
spiritual life than is vouchsafed us. The love of adventure and the
love of love will, of course, remain with us as long as men live and
love a tale, and nine tenths of the stories still deal with the favored
hero and the inevitable girl.

This book is to be an annual venture and its object is the same as that
of Mr. O'Brien's annual selection of American stories. It is to gather
and save from obscurity every year those tales by English authors which
are published in English and American periodicals and are worth
preserving in permanent form. It is well known that short-story writers
in Anglo-Saxon countries have not the same chance of publishing their
wares in book form as their more fortunate colleagues, the novelists.
This prejudice against the publication of short stories in book form is
not to be justified, and it does not exist on the Continent. Most of
the fine fiction, for example, published in Russia since Chekhov made
the form popular, took precisely the form of the short story. It is a
good form and should be encouraged. It is also the object of this
volume to call attention to new writers who show promise and to help to
create a demand for their work by publishing their efforts side by side
with those already accepted and established.

It has been the custom to dedicate Mr. O'Brien's annual selection of
American stories to some author who has distinguished himself in the
particular year by his valuable contribution to the art of the short
story. We propose to adopt it with regard to our English selections. We
are glad of the opportunity to associate this year's collection with