The stories editors buy and why

“The stories editors buy and why” by Jean Wick is an anthology and editors’ market guide written in the early 20th century. It gathers notable American magazine short stories alongside candid editor statements about why those stories were purchased, giving practical insight into taste, technique, and the varied needs of different publications. The opening of the volume first presents a prefatory note that champions the American short story and details how editors shape markets, what different magazines seek, how technique flexes to subject and outlet, and how agents can aid writers (including a defense of agents from an editor’s letter). It then begins with Marie Van Vorst’s “The Week-End Guest,” set amid a Long Island society wedding where a decorated aviator’s open infatuation with the hostess collides with a missing-cash incident involving a pigskin purse, a midnight confrontation, and a later revelation about the stepson’s blackmail troubles that reframes earlier suspicions. At the start of the next selection, Samuel A. Derieux’s “The Terrible Charge Against Jeff Potter,” an old swamp-wise loafer is banished from a store, the store burns that night, and he’s accused; his lonely night rescuing cattle, a mysterious car in the woods, and his arrest lead to a trial where his gentle purpose—carving and staining an Indian doll for a child who trusts him—emerges as his quiet defense.

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