THE BEST EUROPEAN SHORT STORIES OF 1928 by Eaton, Richard (editor) - 1929

New York: Dodd, 1929. Octavo, pp. [i-ii] iii-v [vi] vii-viii [ix-x] 1-309 [310: blank], original red cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, fore-edge untrimmed, bottom edge rough-trimmed, decorated endpapers. First edition. Modeled on the successful series of annual anthologies of American short stories edited by Edward J. O'Brien starting in 1915, Eaton began his own similar series for European stories in 1922. At first he split material up into two volumes: French and Continental (i.e., all other non-English languages used on the continent). In 1928 he consolidated everything into a single "European" volume. The venture did not survive the crash of the following year, but the ten or twelve volumes produced remain excellent sources for minor authors of the period, and, in the earlier volumes (omitted in the present consolidated title), for reference material about contemporary publishing. The current volume collects twenty-one stories from Norway, Armenia, Sweden, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Italy, France, Russia, Bulgaria, Denmark, Croatia, Serbia, Egyptian and Germany. "Today," writes the editor, "not only in France but throughout Europe, the short story has attained a place of dominance in the intellectual world." Several of the stories here, including "The Black Bull" and "Kolaryd Farm" are supernatural. Early ownership inscription on front free endpaper. Top edge dusty, else a near fine copy. (#117659)