SOURCE: An introduction to Selected Short Stories of William Dean Howells, edited by Ruth Bardon, Ohio University Press, 1997, pp. xiii-xxvii.

It is our duty to confess that Mr. Benchley is changing. No longer can the book seller honestly tell you that this is just good, clean, wholesome humor. It isn't so. His carefree spirit has been darkened by the presence of satire. Acid has risen in him and given expression to bitterness just when he seemed about to be nice and funny. The tendency to fancy has increased. He is always slipping away from this orderly and practical world into a world of incongruous fantasy. Really, it is rather irreverent, this neglect of this best of all possible worlds, particularly, as in the world of fancy, he seems to be making faces at this nice practical world he has slipped away from. So perhaps it should be said...