The Usual Star and the Moment

Two little-known story collections from H.D. that offer new ways of thinking about the role of the short story genre in the writer’s career and the modernist movement

The Imagist poet H.D. is widely regarded as one of the most innovative writers of free verse in English. In the last few decades, her poetry and novels have received increasing scholarly attention, but her short prose has rarely been studied. Until now, many of her short stories have been inaccessible for readers, either long out of print or never having been published.

In this volume, Lara Vetter introduces two short story cycles by H.D.—The Usual Star, which comprises two stories, “The Usual Star” and “Two Americans”; and The Moment, which contains the stories “Hesperia,” “Aegina,” “The Moment,” “Jubilee,” “The Last Time,” “The Death of Martin Presser,” and “The Guardians.” Presenting these two collections in their entirety alongside a critical introduction and explanatory notes that frame the stories in their historic, literary, and social context, this volume argues for the serious study of H.D.’s work in this genre.

The stories featured in these collections were written between the 1920s and 1940s, offering an opportunity to study the format as it evolved in H.D.’s thought and practice. This edition situates the stories, some biographically based, within the larger arc of H.D.’s life and career. H.D.’s short stories offer a glimpse into the art and experiences of a queer woman writer of the modernist era.