It has been a policy of this magazine from its inception to publish unknown, unpublished writers. The present issue is devoted to this principle—stories by eight authors starting out. It is what we should be doing. The unsolicited manuscripts arriving daily in plain wrappers (an awesome number every year) are given as much scrutiny, if not more, than those fancied up between a literary agent’s covers. The vast number of manuscripts in what is rather ingloriously referred to as “the slush” obviously poses quite a problem for the preliminary readers. It has often been said that the prototypical method (though not necessarily here) of judging a story, especially of bulk, say a two-pounder, is to read the first paragraph, then the final sentences, and if these show signs of ability, then with a sigh one starts pushing through the whole. This method is somewhat substantiated by Ford Madox Ford in a reminiscence about his editing days in 1909 for The English Review. A young woman named E.T. …