Richard Eaton

“ Perhaps this is not the reason for the remarkable growth in popularity of the short story, but certainly in Continental Europe, the importance of the short story in the literary life of each country is in direct proportion to the economic development. In Italy, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, and Latvia, where one finds practically the same standard of life or civilization as you will in the Anglo-Saxon countries, the short story has attained the same prestige as in America, England, and France. ”

“ Psychologically the public is able to obtain the same reaction from a well constructed short story as from a novel ten times as long. This represents an economy of time and money for the reader. The writer has learned to depict a life story whether tragic or comic in twenty odd pages as vividly as in two hundred and fifty. Moreover the short story, by reason of its brevity, permits the author to revise his work in a way which the exigencies of modern life render difficult in the case of a novel. ”

“ Other countries afford so little choice that it is extremely difficult to find even one story worthy of the title “best.” I have been guided, therefore, in my selection not only by the usual standards of unity, construction, style, interest, and completeness of plot, but likewise by a consideration of the customs and intellectual development of each nation. ”