Excerpt from XX Stories

The object of this volume is to show a certain number of popular modern authors at their best as writers of short stories. Time was when it was said, and generally believed, that the novelists of this country could not write short stories. Most certainly they exercised no inclination to try, or if a few of them did so on occasion, they found their work lying unprofitably on their hands. The three-volume novel was the only kind of fiction that the British reading public cared to welcome. But Mr Rudyard Kipling changed all that. The instant success of his Anglo-Indian stories created a demand for short stories, which has kept on growing to such an extent that we now find authors of the highest reputation turning out volumes of short stories in place of the three-volume novel which formerly represented their average years work. The direct tendency of this changed state of affairs is towards the gradual disappearance of the three-volume novel altogether. Since the introduction of the short story, the reading public have rightly come to regard "padding" as an article of doubtful value.

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