Page:The Smart Set (Volume 32).djvu/8

You observe, of course, that you're getting more magazine for your money this month.

A lot of people wanted a big serial story. This was against the old established policy of the Smart Set—which was have each issue complete in itself.

Then, too, sixteen pages or so given over to an installment of a serial would be that much deducted from the rest of the magazine, the part that pleases those readers who don't like serials. So we said, "Nothing doing," and stuck to it for a long time.

Finally, a bright idea flashed. Why not give our readers their usual 160 pages of novelette, short stories, sketches and verse, all complete in each number, and then put on sixteen more pages to allow for a serial installment?

Fine! So here it is—160 pages, just like all the past issues, everything complete in itself, the brightest, snappiest, livest, reddest-blooded examples of present day literature that can be found—plus sixteen pages of the latest and best work of the most virile and most widely read novelist living today.

E. Phillips Oppenheim stands right at the top. His novels have a wider vogue just now than those of any other man in the English speaking world—because they're real life, and brimful of action and fire.

"Havoc," beginning in this number, is his latest and biggest. As the story progresses it gets more tense and exciting, and ends in a very cyclone of startling happenings. Better arrange now to get every number.

October's going to be a corking good issue.

The complete novel is to be something quite unusual. "The Haunted Pajamas"—doesn't that tickle your curiosity? Francis Perry Elliott, the author, has a singularly pleasing style, and you'll like the hero. It's the kind of novel that's read clear through at one sitting.

Viola Burhans, whose novel, "The Cave Woman," is one of the best of the best sellers today, contributes a strong story of domestic life, "A Second Chance." Angela Morgan's newspaper story, "The Craving," is a tense, illuminating account of the way some great "beats" are obtained. May Isabel Fisk's "The Way of the World," Pierre Lorraine's "The Chevalier de Recroi", and Margery Jackson's "Zero Trois" are all stories of a striking character.

"Other Women's Husbands"—there's a feature that will strike home! Philippa Lyman's essay on this subject is delightful—it will open your eyes, perhaps.

And that's not all!