SOURCE: Petersen, Carol Miles. Introduction to The Collected Short Works 1907-1919, pp. vii-xiii. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

In the following introduction to a collection of Aldrich's short works, Petersen gives a critical overview of Aldrich's writing.

In describing how to write a short story, Bess Streeter Aldrich noted the author must “live the lives of his characters, crawling into their very skins. … He must be an actor. More than that, he must play all the parts.”¹ In playing “all the parts,” Bess Streeter Aldrich brought to her readers the pleasure of well-written stories that reflect her own personality: her positive outlook on life, her humor, her understanding of people. The stories further offer the pleasure of recognizing characters and incidents that reappear in Aldrich novels: the revised Mason and Cutter family stories became the books Mother Mason (1924), and The Cutters (1926); and Zimri Streeter appears as “Grandpa...