In the Realm of Authors and Literature

The Smart Set Anthology, edited by Burton Rascoe and Groff Conklin. Reynal and Hitchcok. $3.50.

The stems of our literary present are rooted, to a great degree, in that flourishing and fertile period during which the twentieth century was in its ‘teens and the Smart Set Magazine was the precursor of a liberalism in realistic literary expression. It was an era, to quote Burton Rascoe, when “a great many young people had been brought up on the teaching that Mark Twain was vulgar, that Henry Van Dyke was a philosopher, that Robert Underwood Johnson was a poet and that William Allen White and Owen Wister were great American novelists.”

This is the period of “The Smart Set Anthology,” the recently published work (Reynal and Hitchcock) of those editorial collaborators, Burton Rascoe and Groff Conklin.

It was Smart Set that published some of the early O’Henry stories. And it was Smart Set that published a short story by an unknown James Branch Cabell, “Some Ladies and Jurgen,” from which the famous novel later came. The only play Joseph Conrad ever wrote appeared in this publication; so, too, did plays by the Butterick editor, Theodore Dreiser, and by that promising playwright, Eugene O’Neill. Somerset Maugham’s short story, “Sadie Thompson,” from which came the play “Rain,” appeared in Smart Set after Ray Long and almost every other magazine editor had ejected it. Other notables who appeared in Smart Set early in their careers are Dorothy Canfield, Floyd Dell, Lord Dunsany, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Llewellyn Powys, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Richard Arthur Payson Terhune, Jim Tully, Deems Taylor and an endless procession of others.

And in this procession of new talent was a goodly share of Jews. It is interesting, now, to note, their contributions. Ludwig Lewisohn, certainly one of the major prophets in Israel today, is represented in the anthology with a short piece entitled, “The Story Ashland Told,” published in Smart Set in February, 1919. As he gave permission to the editors to use it, he requested that they prominently mention his “philosophical repudiation of these scribblings of my earlier years.” Mr. Lewisohn pointed out his own distaste for his earlier work as an example of a period of style and point of view which he has since outgrown.

With Mr. Lewisohn’s misgivings in mind, I eagerly read the story. What manner of philosophy did it subscribe to that caused the noted author and critic to “philosophically repudiate” it? This story was a cry for bravery in the face of life and love. And “The Story Ashland Told” was one of domestic infidelity in which the woman denied her lover his due because she, herself, was married.

I, of course, am only free to speak for myself, not for Mr. Lewisohn. But the story seems to me to be pungent, true and engrossing. It is nothing of which Mr. Lewisohn need be ashamed. And the editors of the anthology can offer it as a story of distinction, as I gather they do, and not as a museum piece presented only because of the author’s later greatness.

Dorothy Parker is represented in the anthology by “Such a Pretty Little Picture,” one of her earliest and a hitherto unpublished work. Like the great majority of her later works, it is a portrait of a female Babbitt. This example of Mrs. Parker’s art, though is couched in gentle irony; it is not the vicious, vindictive portrait of boring womankind that has characterized so much of her prose. It reveals her gift for dialogue, the admiration for the ironical ending, reminiscent, to a certain extent of O’Henry. An interesting story in itself, it is not in a class with Mrs. Parker’s later stories.

Thyra Samter Winslow, described by Mr. Rascoe, as “a brilliant adornment to the old Smart Set” is represented in the anthology by “Orphant Annie” published in June of 1923 in the Smart Set under the editorship of Mencken and Nathan. Mr. Rascoe states that nearly all of her best works appeared in the magazine and particularly commends her “acid observations on the cattiness of women toward one and another; her realistic treatment of domestic difficulties, and her keen sharp portrayals of human vanity, selfishness and ambition.” These qualities, he states, “give her high ranking among modern short story writers.” “Orphant Annie,” a long short story, is given the honor of leading off the anthology.

Ben Hecht, of course, is among those present. Of him, in his introduction, Rascoe writes: “I remember Ben Hecht of the fertile imagination, the macabre invention, the coruscating adjectives and a whole posse of creditors, turning out two or three short stories a week, accepted and paid for by Mencken and Nathan, and run under three or four different names made up in the office. Hecht has as many as four stories in one issue, only one signed by his own name.”

There are other Jewish names. Myron Brinig, who this year gave us “Out of Life,” is represented by “Blissful Interlude,” a short story that appeared in August, 1921. The Theatre Guild’s Theresa Helburn is represented by a poem, “Resurrection,” vintage, December, 1915. Waldo Frank, on this year’s list with “The Death and Birth of David Markand,” published in July, 1915 a story called “The Fruit of Misadventure.”

George Jean Nathan, one of the editors of the Smart Set, is represented with some of his critical writings, a few selections from his American Credo series and an article on Paris Night Life in 1914. Charles Yale Harrison, who wrote the anti-war novel “Generals Die in Bed,” is represented by a short anecdote, “The Treasure,” which he wrote at the age of fifteen, his first published work.

Louis Untermyer contributed a poem, first published in 1913, called “Lilith.” Catherine Brody, of recent fame, wrote “Saturday Night Blues” for Smart Set back in October, 1920. The late Arthur Schnitzler made one of his early appearances in America with “The Dead Are Silent.” In 1911, Smart Set published Felix Reisenberg’s “Slapdasher the Artist.” And a poem, “Silence,” by Babette Deutsch, appeared in October, 1917.

This is not a roll call of Smart Set’s Jewish contributors. Just a listing of those represented in “The Smart Set Anthology,” 840 pages of fine reading and one of the best literary buys of the year, or any year for that matter.

H. W. L.

Judah Jonah ben Isaac, born at Safed in 1558, assumed the name of Battista Giovanni Galileo on baptism and became librarian of the Vatican.

Jacob Barnett taught Hebrew at Oxford about 1613.