Books: In the Continental Manner

FRENCH STORIES AND TALES (326 pp.)—Edited by Stanley Gelst—Knopf ($3.95).

MODERN ITALIAN SHORT STORIES (429 pp.)—Edited by Marc Slonim—Simon & Schuster ($5).

The stories in these two collections form a literary skyline ranging from grand ruins to temporary housing. After weathering the years in all critical climates, the French tales, engineered by such masters as Stendhal, Flaubert, de Maupassant, are pitted in spots, but glow with the patina of timelessness. The Italian stories, put up in the hurry and scurry of the post-World War I decades by such contemporary literary architects as Alberto...