Other members of society reflected in the year are preachers, judges, criminals, actors, and actresses.  For some years, it is true, actor and actress have been treated increasingly as human beings, less as puppets who walk about on the stage.  This volume contains two stories illustrating the statement:  “The Urge,” by Maryland Allen, which marshalls the grimly ironic reasons for the success of the heroine who is the most famous comedienne of her day; “Fifty-Two Weeks for Florette,” which touches with a pathos that gave the story instant recognition the lives of vaudeville Florette and her son.  It is not without significance that these stories are the first their respective authors have published.

0.F.  Lewis brings the judge to his own bar in “The Day of Judgment,” but had difficulty in finding a denouement commensurate with his antecedent material.  The Committee Preferred his “The Get-Away” and its criminals, who are Presented objectively, without prejudice, save as their own acts invoke it.  Viciously criminal is Tedge, of “The Man Who Cursed the Lilies,” by Charles Tenney Jackson.  The Committee value this narrative for the power and intensity of its subject matter, for its novel theme, for its familiar yet seldom-used setting, for its poetic justice and for its fulfilment of short story structural laws.

“The Victim of His Vision,” by Gerald Chittenden, dramatizes the missionary’s reverse, unusual in fiction, and presents a convincing demonstration of the powers of voodoo.  Readers who care for manifestations of the superstitious and the magical will appreciate the reality of this story as they will that of “Rra Boloi,” mentioned above.  They may also be interested in comparing these with Joseph Hergesheimer’s “Juju.”  Mr. Hergesheimer’s story, however, fails to maintain in the outcome the high level of the initial concept and the execution of the earlier stages.

A number of 1921 stories centre about a historic character.  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tarquin of Cheapside” (Smart Set, February) offers in episode form the motivation of Shakespeare’s “Rape of Lucrece”; Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews parallels her “The Perfect Tribute” and eulogy of Lincoln with “His Soul Goes Marching On” and warm reminiscence of Roosevelt; Fleta Campbell Springer’s “The Role of Madame Ravelles” is apparently a tapestry in weaving the stately figure of Georgette LeBlanc.  Ranking highest among these personal narratives, however, is Mildred Cram’s “Stranger Things—­” Besides calling up, under the name of Cecil Grimshaw, the irresistible figure of Oscar Wilde, the author has created a supernatural tale of challenging intricacy and imaginative genius.  The only other stories of the supernatural to find place in the Committee’s first list are Maxwell Struthers Burt’s “Buchanan Hears the Wind” and Mary Heaton Vorse’s “The Halfway House.”  In all of these, suggestion, delicately managed, is the potent element of success.