The years from 1930 to 1955 marked a high point in the fortunes of the English short story. Inevitably World War II left its mark on many of the stories Derek Hudson has collected in this suberb volume, but, he argues in the introduction, that "the dominating impression in these English stories...is of humour--not necessarily in the comic sense...but in the sense...of a humorous perspective of life."
The volume includes stories by such renowned writers as Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolf, and Evelyn Waugh. Stories by Elizabeth Bowen, Frances Towers, Clemence Dane, Rosamond Lehmann, and...