When William March is remembered at all today, it is usually as the author of the sensationalistic best-seller The Bad Seed (1954), his last novel. Yet his narrative gifts--his wry irony, skillfully cadenced dialogue, and understated style--are realized most successfully in his short stories.

Born William Edward Campbell in Mobile, Alabama, on 18 September 1893, March lived his early years in the numerous southern sawmill towns in which his father, John Leonard Campbell, found employment. At fourteen March quit school to go to work, but he later spent a year finishing high school (1913-1914) at Valparaiso University (Indiana) and a year (1914-1915) at the law school of the University of Alabama.

When America entered World War I, March was working with a New York City law office to earn money to renew his formal education; however, he abandoned these plans and enlisted in the Marine Corps. March served heroically in some...