O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 Part 1

O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920.

by Various, et al.

INTRODUCTION

O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES 1919, in its introduction, rendered a brief account of the origin of this monument to O.

Henry's genius. Founded in 1918 by the Society of Arts and Sciences, through the initiative of Managing Director John F. Tucker, it took the form of two annual prizes of $500 and $250 for, respectively, the best and second-best stories written by Americans and published in America.

The Committee of Award sifted the periodicals of 1919 and found thirty-two which, in their opinion, were superior specimens of short-story art. The prize-winners, determined in the manner set forth, were Margaret Prescott Montague's "England to America" and Wilbur Daniel Steele's "For They Know Not What They Do." For these stories the authors duly received the awards, on the occasion of the O. Henry Memorial dinner which was given by the Society at the Hotel Astor, June 2, 1920.

Since it appeared to be a fitting extension of the memorial to incorporate in volume form the narratives chosen, they were included, either by t.i.tle or reprint, in the first book of the series of which this is the second. Thus grouped, they are testimony to unprejudiced selection on the part of the Committee of Award as they are evidence of ability on the part of their authors.

The first volume has met favour from critics and from laymen. For the recognition of tedious, if pleasant, hours necessary to a meticulous survey of twelve months' brief fiction, the Committee of Award are grateful, as they are indebted to the generous cooperation of authors and publishers, but for whom the work would have been impossible of continuation.

The committee express thanks for the approval which affirms that "No more fitting tribute to the genius of William Sidney Porter (O. Henry) could possibly have been devised than that of this 'Memorial Award,'" [1] which recognizes each story as "a definite expression of American life--as O. Henry's was," [2] which knows by inescapable logic that a story ranking second with five judges is superior to one ranking first with only one of these. A number of reviewers graciously showed awareness of this fact.

[Footnote 1: _New York Times_, June 2, 1920.]

[Footnote 2: _Chicago Tribune_, Paris Edition, August 7, 1920.]

The Committee of Award for 1920 consisted of

BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph.D., Chairman | EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D. | JUDGES ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD | MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT, D.D. | and JOHN F. TUCKER, Managing Director of the Society, Founder of the O. Henry Memorial.

As in preceding years the Committee held regular meetings at which they weighed the merits of every story-candidate presented. By January, 1921, one hundred and twenty-five remained, among which those rated highest are as follows:[3]

Babc.o.c.k, Edwina Stanton, Gargoyle (_Harper's_, Sept.) Barrett, Richmond Brooks, The Daughter of the Bernsteins (_Smart Set_, July).

"Belden, Jacques," The Duke's Opera (_Munsey's_, October).

Benet, Stephen Vincent, The Funeral of John Bixby (_Munsey's_, July).

Brooks, Jonathan, Bills Playable (_Collier's_, September 18).

Burt, Maxwell Struthers, A Dream or Two (_Harper's_, May); Each in His Generation (_Scribner's_, July).

Cabell, James Branch, The Designs of Miramon (_Century_, August).

Child, Richard Washburn, A Thief Indeed (_Pictorial Review_, June).

Clausen, Carl, The Perfect Crime (_Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, Sept. 25).

Cram, Mildred, The Ember (_McCall's_, June); Odell (_Red Book_, May); Wind (_Munsey's_, August).

Dobie, Charles Caldwell, Young China (_Ladies Home Journal_, August).

Edwards, Cleveland, Pride o' Name on Peachtree (_Live Stories_, Feb.).

Ferber, Edna, You've Got to Be Selfish (_McClure's_, April).

Fitzgerald, Scott, The Camel's Back (_Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, Apr. 24); The Cut-Gla.s.s Bowl (_Scribner's_, May); The Off-Sh.o.r.e Pirate (_Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, May 29).

Forbes, Esther, Break-Neck Hill (_Grinnell Review_, September).

Gilpatric, Guy, Black Art and Ambrose (_Collier's_, August 21).

Hartman, Lee Foster, The Judgment of Vulcan (_Harper's_, March).

Hergesheimer, Joseph, "Read Them and Weep" (_Century_, January).

Hooker, Brian, Branwen (_Romance_, June).

Hull, Alexander, The Argosies (_Scribner's_, September).

Hume, Wilkie, The Metamorphosis of High Yaller (_Live Stories_, June).

Kabler, Hugh, Fools First (_Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, November 20).

Kerr, Sophie, Divine Waste (_Woman's Home Companion_, May).

La Motte, Widows and Orphans (_Century_, September).

Lewis, O. F., Alma Mater (_Red Book_, June). Sparks That Flash in the Night (_Red Book_, October).

Marquis, Don Kale (_Everybody's_, September); Death and Old Man Murtrie (_New Republic_, February 4).

Marshall, Edison, Brother Bill the Elk (_Blue Book_, May).

Means, E. K., The Ten-Share Horse (_Munsey's_, May).

Miller, Alice Duer, Slow Poison (_Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, June 12).

Montague, Margaret Prescott, Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge (_Atlantic Monthly_, June).

[4]Mumford, Ethel Watts, A Look of the Copperleys (_Ladies Home Journal_, April); Red Gulls (_Pictorial Review_, October).

Newell, Maude Woodruff, Salvage (_Green Book_, July).

Noyes, Frances Newbold, "Contact!" [5] (_Pictorial Review_, December).

Pelley, William Dudley, The Face in the Window (_Red Book_, May); The Show-Down (_Red Book_, June).

Perry, Lawrence, The Real Game (_Everybody's_, July). A Matter of Loyalty (_Red Book_, July); The Lothario of the Seabird (_Ladies Home Journal_, August); The Rocks of Avalon (_Red Book_, December).

Post, Melville Davisson, The House by the Loch (_Hearst's_, May).

Redington, Sarah, A Certain Rich Woman (_Outlook_, May 5).

Reid, M. F., Doodle Buys a Bull Pup (_Everybody's_, August).

Richardson, Norval, The Bracelet (_McClure's_, July).

Robbins, L.H., "Ain't This the Darnedest World?" (_American_, May); Professor Todd's Used Car (_Everybody's_, July).

"Rutledge, Marice," The Thing They Loved (_Century_, May).

Ryan, Kathryn White, A Man of Cone (_Munsey's_, March).

Scarborough, Dorothy, The Drought (_Century_, May).

"Sidney, Rose," b.u.t.terflies (_Pictorial Review_, September).

Smith, Gordon Arthur, No Flowers (_Harper's_, May); The Aristocrat (_Harper's_, November).

Steele, Wilbur Daniel, Both Judge and Jury (_Harper's_, January); G.o.d's Mercy (_Pictorial Review_, July); Footfalls (_Pictorial Review_, October).

Synon, Mary, On Scarlet Wings (_Red Book_, July).

t.i.tus, Harold, Aliens (_Ladies Home Journal_, May).

Tuckerman, Arthur, Black Magic, (_Scribner's_, August).

Welles, Harriet, According to Ruskin (_Woman's Home Companion_, June); Distracting Adeline (_Scribner's_, May).

Whitman, Stephen French, The Last Room of All (_Harper's_, June).

Wilkes, Allene Tupper, Toop Goes Skating (_Woman's Home Companion_, November).

[Footnote 3: Listed alphabetically by authors.]

[Footnote 4: A member of the Committee of Award, this author refused as a matter of course to allow consideration of her stories for republication here or for the prizes. But the other members insist upon their being listed, and upon mention of "Red Gulls" as one of the best stories of 1920.]

[Footnote 5: Reprinted as by Frances Noyes Hart.]

From this list were selected seventeen stories which, in the judgment of the Committee, rank highest and which, therefore, are reprinted in this volume.

Since, as will be recalled from the conditions of the award, only American authors were considered, certain familiar foreign names are conspicuously absent. Achmed Abdullah, Stacy Aumonier, F. Britten Austin, Phyllis Bottome, Thomas Burke, Coningsby Dawson, Mrs. Henry Dudeney, Lord Dunsany, John Galsworthy, Perceval Gibbon, Blasco Ibanez, Maurice Level, A. Neil Lyons, Seumas MacMa.n.u.s, Leonard Merrick, Maria Moravsky, Alfred Noyes, May Sinclair and Hugh Walpole all ill.u.s.trate recovery from the world war. But with their stories the Committee had nothing to do. The Committee cannot forbear mention, however, of "Under the Tulips" (_Detective Stories_, February 10), one of the two best horror specimens of the year. It is by an Englishwoman, May Edginton.

Half a dozen names from the foreign list just given are synonymous with the best fiction of the period. Yet the short story as practised in its native home continues to excel the short story written in other lands. The English, the Russian, the French, it is being contended in certain quarters, write better literature. They do not, therefore, write better stories. If literature is of a magnificent depth and intricate subtlety in a measure proportionate to its reflection of the vast complexity of a nation that has existed as such for centuries, conceivably it will be facile and clever in a measure proportionate to its reflection of the spirit of the commonwealth which in a few hundred years has acquired a place with age-old empires.

The American short-story is "simple, economical, and brilliantly effective," H.L. Mencken admits.[6] "Yet the same hollowness that marks the American novel," he continues, "also marks the short story."

And of "many current makers of magazine short stories," he a.s.severates, "such stuff has no imaginable relation to life as men live it in the world." He further comments, "the native author of any genuine force and originality is almost invariably found to be under strong foreign influences, either English or Continental."

With due regard for the justice of this slant--that of a student of Shaw, Ibsen, and Nietzsche--we believe that the best stories written in America to-day reflect life, even life that is sordid and dreary or only commonplace. In the New York _Evening Post_[7] the present writer observed: