20 Best Short Stories in Ray Long’s 20 Years as an Editor

 

This is just what it says - 20 stories that editor Ray Long chose over his 20 years as a magazine editor. It came out in 1932, but the dates of each story are a little unclear. Some of them were spectacular - the standout for me was The Juggler by Arthur Stringer - not about a juggler, but about a struggling playwright. The book is a reminder that magazines like Cosmopolitan and Redbook were once very different. And did you know there was a Bluebook? All the stories were solid - though a story about hospitalized WWI soldiers was so full of dated references, sarcastic jokes, and veiled innuendo that I struggled to follow it, though this New York Times Review hailed it as a standout. So much of the writing was of such a high caliber I found myself noting techniques and turns of phrase.