I skimmed the Introduction by the editor, but can't see a lot of explanation for her choices, other than looking for the best quality of the day, (not always finding it?). The thing is, there's a really heavy bias towards the last two decades, suggesting she couldn't find a lot of "high quality" in the older stuff? Like, nothing in the 1910s, but 32 in the 1980s, and another 32 in the 1990s. And check below...
1920 to 1929
A whole TWO stories (both from 1928), and like most of the prior ones, each in a rural setting, albeit now more on the fringes of urbanisation, felt like at the edges of larger country towns. But both were at the Good level, easy to read, very little "dated" language, wouldn't have been particularly out of place in the 1970s.
But why only two? Surely there have been plenty more.
1930 to 1939
There's four in this decade, two of them Good, two of them a lot less than. One of the Good ones was set, in my guess, back in the mid 1800s, about white colonial settlers out in the pastoral frontier, trying to wrestle the land from the native population. All very confronting and uncomfortable and extremely non-PC. Which is probably why it was included.
The other Good one is set in an (underground) mining community, which - in Aus - was always a thousand miles from anywhere. But at least it does reflect the increasing consciousness of mining Company liability for its workers.
The other two stories - one by a "name" - were set in suburbia but were pretty nothing. In my opinion. I'm bloody sure there were better ones in the day
I'll give it a rest for a while before I dive into the seven from the 1940s and the three from the 1950s. But so far have to say I'm disappointed by the selection process.
Cheers....
T.R.E.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>