This volume gathers twenty distinctive short stories published in American periodicals between October nineteen twenty and September nineteen twenty-one, selected for their organic substance and artistic form. The editor traces the unique path of American literature during a period of profound national transformation, contrasting the homogeneous traditions of European writers with the seething cross-currents of a complex immigrant society.
Opening with an extensive critical introduction, the text explores why contemporary American fiction often bewildered European critics. The editor suggests that American artists were forging new harmonies out of a cultural chaos produced by intersecting racial memories and the intense pressure of industrial civilization. This struggle for a native art form is illustrated through works by notable authors of the era.
The collected stories range widely in tone and subject, from Sherwood Anderson's poignant study of loneliness and quiet desperation to Konrad Bercovici's vivid tale of gipsy life along the Danube. Other contributions examine subtle psychological conflicts, domestic tragedies, and frontier existences, each piece representing an attempt to render life imaginatively in vital substance.
The volume concludes with an exhaustive apparatus for scholars and readers of the period. This includes the annual yearbook of the American short story, lists of American and English publishing magazines, biographical rolls of honor, critical summaries of short story volumes published in the United States, England, and France, and comprehensive indexes of works and authors.
Through these records, the book serves both as an anthology of significant literary art and as a comprehensive critical survey of the short story form during a formative decade in modern literary history.
