Although today John Erskine cannot be considered anything but a minor writer, one who exerted little lasting influence upon the short-story form itself, his fame in the first two quarters of the twentieth century was great indeed, based upon his distinguished accomplishments in several fields, fiction writing not the least of these. Many of Erskine's novels and short stories are realistic, usually satiric, treatments of fairy tales, myths, fables, and romantic legends. By either re-examining or, more frequently, continuing the stories of such familiar characters as Cinderella, Helen of Troy, and Lady Godiva, Erskine brought to bear upon these traditional stories a modern sensibility and a concern with the human condition that invariably belied the "happy-ever-after" optimism of the original materials. That his approach to fiction was well received is evidenced by the proliferation of his stories following the publication of his first commercially successful novel, The Private...