O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 2

1. The Marriage in Kairwan, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harper's_, December). Ethel Watts Mumford.

2. A Life, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Pictorial Review_, August).

Edward J. Wheeler.

3. Wisdom Buildeth Her House, by Donn Byrne (_Century_, December).

Blanche Colton Williams.

4. Waiting, by Helen R. Hull (_Touchstone_, February). Grove E.

Wilson.

5. The Poppies of Wu Fong, by Lee Foster Hartman (_Harper's_, November). Frances Gilchrist Wood.

Out of the first list sixteen stories were requested for republication in this volume. The significance of the third list lies in the fact that only one story was selected from it, the others meeting objections from the remainder of the Committee.

Since no first choice story won the prize, the Committee resorted, as in former years, to the point system, according to which the leader is "The Heart of Little Shikara," by Edison Marshall. To Mr. Marshall, therefore, goes the first prize of $500. In like manner, the second prize, of $250, is awarded to "The Man Who Cursed the Lilies," by Charles Tenney Jackson.

In discussing "A Life," "The Marriage in Kairwan," and "'Toinette of Maissonnoir," all published by Wilbur Daniel Steele in 1921, in remarking upon the high merit of his brief fiction in other years, and in recalling that he alone is represented in the first three volumes of O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories, the Committee intimated the wish to express in some tangible fashion its appreciation of this author's services to American fiction. On the motion of Doctor Wheeler, therefore, the Committee voted to ask an appropriation from the Society of Arts and Sciences as a prize to be awarded on account of general excellence in the short story in 1919, 1920, and 1921. This sum of $500 was granted by the Society, through the proper authorities, and is accordingly awarded to Wilbur Daniel Steele.

Two characteristics of stories published in 1921 reveal editorial policies that cannot but be harmful to the quality of this art. These ear-marks are complementary and, yet, paradoxically antipodal. In order to draw out the torso and tail of a story through Procrustean lengths of advertising pages, some editors place, or seem to place, a premium upon length. The writer, with an eye to acceptance by these editors, consciously or unconsciously pads his matter, giving a semblance of substance where substance is not. Many stories fall below first rank in the opinion of the Committee through failure to achieve by artistic economy the desired end. The comment "Overwritten"

appeared again and again on the margins of such stories. The reverse of this policy, as practised by other editors, is that of chopping the tail or, worse, of cutting out sections from the body of the narrative, then roughly piecing together the parts to fit a smaller s.p.a.ce determined by some expediency. Under the observation of the Committee have fallen a number of stories patently cut for s.p.a.ce accommodation. Too free use of editorial blue pencil and scissors has furnished occasion for protest among authors and for comment by the press. For example, in _The Literary Review_ of _The New York Post_, September 3, the leading article remarks, after granting it is a rare script that cannot be improved by good editing, and after making allowance for the physical law of limitation by s.p.a.ce: "Surgery, however, must not become decapitation or such a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of long ears and projecting toes as savage tribes practise. It seems very probable that by ruthless reshaping and hampering specifications in our magazines, stories and articles have been seriously affected."

Further, "the pa.s.sion for editorial cutting" is graphically ill.u.s.trated in The _Authors' League Bulletin_ for December (page 8) by a mutilation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

Although, by the terms of the Memorial, the Committee were at liberty to consider only stories by American authors, they could not but observe the increasing number of races represented through authorship.

Some of the following names will be recognized from preceding years, some of them are new: Blasco Ibanez, W. Somerset Maugham, May Sinclair, Mrs. Henry Dudeney, Mary b.u.t.ts, Frank Swinnerton, Georges Clemenceau, Johan Bojer, H. Soderberg, Seumas Macma.n.u.s, R. Sabatini, Demetra Vaka, Achmed Abdullah, Rabindranath Tagore, A. Remizov, Konrad Bercovici, Anzia Yezierska, and--daughter of an English mother and Italian father who met in China, she herself having been born in San Francisco--Adriana Spadoni. Nor do these represent all the nations whose sons and daughters practise the one indigenous American art on its native soil. Let the list stand, without completion, sufficient to the point.

The note of democracy is sounded, as a sequence, in the subject matter. East Side Italian and Jew brush shoulders in Miss Spadoni's tales; Englishman, Dane, and South Sea Islander shake hands on the same page of W. Somerset Maugham's "The Trembling of a Leaf"; Norwegian, Frenchman, and Spaniard are among us, as before; Bercovici's gypsies from the Roumanian Danube, now collected in "Ghitza," flash colourful and foreign from the Dobrudja Mountains and the Black Sea. In one remarkable piece of melodrama, "Rra Boloi," by the Englishman Crosbie Garstin (_Adventure_), and the African witch doctor of the Chwene Kopjes enters short-story literature.

The Oriental had been exploited to what appeared the ultimate; but continued interest in the Eastern problem brings tidal waves of j.a.panese and Chinese stories. Disarmament Conferences may or may not effect the ideal envisioned by the Victorian, a time "when the war drums throb no longer, and the battle-flags are furled in the Parliament of Man"; but the short story follows the gleam, merely by virtue of authorship and by reflecting the peoples of the earth.

When Lee Foster Hartman created his Chinese hero in "The Poppies of Wu Fong," dramatized Oriental inscrutability with Occidental suavity and sureness, and set off the Oriental gentleman in American surroundings, he brought together the nations in a new vision of the brotherhood of man. This story was preferred, for the reasons implied, by Frances Gilchrist Wood, who sees in Wu Fong's garden the subtle urge of acres of flowers, asleep under the stars, pitted against the greed of profiteers; who sees in answer to Western fume and fret the wisdom of Confucius, "Come out and see my poppies." The story was rejected by other members who, while applauding the author's motivation of character, his theme, and his general treatment, yet felt a lack of emotion and a faltering at the dramatic climax.

Wilbur Daniel Steele's "The Marriage in Kairwan" presents an appalling tragedy which, if it be typical, may befall any Tunisian lady who elects for herself man's standard of morality--for himself. Such a story is possible when the seeing eye and the understanding heart of an American grasps the situation in Kairwan and through the technician's art develops it, transforms it, and bears it into the fourth dimension of literature. The thread of narrative runs thinly, perhaps, through the stiffly embroidered fabric, heavy as cloth of gold; the end may be discerned too soon. But who can fail of being shocked at the actual denouement? The story may be, as Ethel Watts Mumford admits, caviar. "But if so," she adds, "it is Beluga Imperial."

Donn Bryne's "Wisdom Buildeth Her House," is constructed on a historic foundation, the visit that Balkis, Queen of Sheba, made to Solomon, King of the Jews. Mr. Bryne has not only built a cunning mosaic, plunging into the stream of Scriptural narrative for his tessellations and drawing gems out of The Song of Solomon, but he has also recalled by virtue of exercising a vigorous imagination, the glory of the royalty that was Sheba's and the grandeur of her domain in pictures as gorgeously splendid as those from an Arabian Night. He has elaborated the Talmud story with mighty conviction from a novel point of view and has whetted his theme on the story of a love the King lacked wisdom to accept. The Chairman of the Committee prefers this story; but other members a.s.sert that it lacks novelty and vitality, nor can they find that it adds anything new to the Song of Songs.

These three first choice stories, then, are strong in Oriental flavour, characters, and setting.

Again, democracy (in the etymological sense of the word, always, rather than the political) is exemplified in the fiction of 1921, in that the humblest life as well as the highest offers matter for romance. More than in former years, writers seek out the romance that lies in the lives of the average man or woman. Having learned that the Russian story of realism, with emphasis too frequently placed upon the naturalistic and the sordid, is not a vehicle easily adapted to conveying the American product, the American author of sincerity and belief in the possibility of realistic material has begun to treat it in romantic fashion, always the approved fashion of the short story in this country. So Harry Anable Kniffin's "The Tribute" weaves in 1,700 words a legend about the Unknown Soldier and makes emotionally vivid the burial of Tommy Atkins. Commonplace types regarded in the past as insufficiently drab, on the one hand, and insufficiently picturesque on the other are reflected in this new romantic treatment. Sarah Addington's "Another Cactus Blooms" prophesies colour in that hard and p.r.i.c.kly plant the provincial teacher at Columbia for a term of graduate work. Humorously and sardonically the college professor is served up in "The Better Recipe," by George Boas (_Atlantic Monthly_, March); the doctorate degree method is satirized so bitterly, by Sinclair Lewis, in "The Post Mortem Murder" (_Century_, May), as to challenge wonder, though so subtly as to escape all save the initiated.

Sophie Kerr's "Wild Earth" makes capital in like legitimate manner of the little shop girl and her farmer husband. Wesley Dean is as far removed from the Down Easterner of a Mary Wilkins farm as his wife, Anita, is remote from the Sallies and Nannies of the farmhouse. Of the soil this story bears the fragrance in a happier manner; its theme of wild pa.s.sion belongs to the characters, as it might belong, also, to the man and woman of another setting. "Here is a romance of the farm,"

the author seems to say; not sordid realistic portrayal of earth grubbers. So, too, Tristram Tupper's "Grit" reveals the inspiration that flashed from the life of a junkman. So Cooper and Creagan evoke the drama of the railroad man's world: glare of headlight, crash of wreckage and voice of the born leader mingle in unwonted orchestration. "Martin Gerrity Gets Even" is reprinted as their best story of this _genre_.

The stories of Ethel Watts Mumford declare her cosmopolitan ability and her willingness to deal with lives widely diverse. At least three rank high in the estimation of her fellow-committeemen. "Aurore," by its terseness and poignant interpretation of the character of the woman under the Northern Lights touches poetry and is akin to music in its creative flight. The Committee voted to include it in Volume III, under the author's protest and under her express stipulation that it should not be regarded as a candidate for either prize. That another of her stories might have found place in the collection is indicated best by the following letter:

The Players 16 Gramercy Park New York City

November 16th

Re. O. HENRY MEMORIAL PRIZE.

To Dr. B.C. Williams, 605 West 113 Street, New York City.

My Dear Doctor Williams,

I mailed to you yesterday a copy of a story by Ethel Watts Mumford, ent.i.tled "Funeral Frank," published in the _Detective Story Magazine_ two weeks ago--for your consideration in awarding the O. Henry Memorial prize.

I think it is the best short story I have read in a long time both for originality of subject and technical construction.

The choice on the author's part of such an unsuspected (by the reader) and seemingly insignificant agent for the working of Nemesis, I think shows great skill. I say _seemingly_ insignificant because a little dog seems such a small and unlikely thing to act the leading part in a criminal's judgment and suggested regeneration--and yet all lovers of animals know what such a tie of affection may mean, especially to one who has no human friends--and even while it works, the victim of Nemesis as the author says "is wholly unconscious of the irony of the situation."

Apart from this I think the tale is exceedingly well told in good English and with the greatest possible economy of s.p.a.ce.

Yours very truly, Oliver Herford.

"Waiting," by Helen R. Hull, stands first on the list of Grove E.

Wilson, who thinks its handling of everyday characters, its simplicity of theme and its high artistry most nearly fulfil, among the stories of the year, his ideal of short story requirements. Though admired as literature by the Committee, it seemed to one or two members to present a character study rather than a story. Certainly, in no other work of the period have relations between a given mother and daughter been psychologized with greater deftness and skill.

Other members of society reflected in the year are preachers, judges, criminals, actors, and actresses. For some years, it is true, actor and actress have been treated increasingly as human beings, less as puppets who walk about on the stage. This volume contains two stories ill.u.s.trating the statement: "The Urge," by Maryland Allen, which marshalls the grimly ironic reasons for the success of the heroine who is the most famous comedienne of her day; "Fifty-Two Weeks for Florette," which touches with a pathos that gave the story instant recognition the lives of vaudeville Florette and her son. It is not without significance that these stories are the first their respective authors have published.

0.F. Lewis brings the judge to his own bar in "The Day of Judgment,"

but had difficulty in finding a denouement commensurate with his antecedent material. The Committee Preferred his "The Get-Away" and its criminals, who are Presented objectively, without prejudice, save as their own acts invoke it. Viciously criminal is Tedge, of "The Man Who Cursed the Lilies," by Charles Tenney Jackson. The Committee value this narrative for the power and intensity of its subject matter, for its novel theme, for its familiar yet seldom-used setting, for its poetic justice and for its fulfilment of short story structural laws.

"The Victim of His Vision," by Gerald Chittenden, dramatizes the missionary's reverse, unusual in fiction, and presents a convincing demonstration of the powers of voodoo. Readers who care for manifestations of the superst.i.tious and the magical will appreciate the reality of this story as they will that of "Rra Boloi," mentioned above. They may also be interested in comparing these with Joseph Hergesheimer's "Juju." Mr. Hergesheimer's story, however, fails to maintain in the outcome the high level of the initial concept and the execution of the earlier stages.

A number of 1921 stories centre about a historic character. F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tarquin of Cheapside" (_Smart Set_, February) offers in episode form the motivation of Shakespeare's "Rape of Lucrece"; Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews parallels her "The Perfect Tribute" and eulogy of Lincoln with "His Soul Goes Marching On" and warm reminiscence of Roosevelt; Fleta Campbell Springer's "The Role of Madame Ravelles" is apparently a tapestry in weaving the stately figure of Georgette LeBlanc. Ranking highest among these personal narratives, however, is Mildred Cram's "Stranger Things--" Besides calling up, under the name of Cecil Grimshaw, the irresistible figure of Oscar Wilde, the author has created a supernatural tale of challenging intricacy and imaginative genius. The only other stories of the supernatural to find place in the Committee's first list are Maxwell Struthers Burt's "Buchanan Hears the Wind" and Mary Heaton Vorse's "The Halfway House."

In all of these, suggestion, delicately managed, is the potent element of success.

Animals figure in vaster numbers and under intensive psychological study. That a race-horse owner goes nowadays to the astrologer for a horoscope of his racer is a fact that insinuatingly elevates the beast to the plane of his master. In the short story of 1921, the monkey, the tiger, the elephant, the dog and all their kind are treated from an anthropomorphic point of view. Courtney Ryley Cooper's t.i.tles--"Love" and "Vengeance," for example--covering stories dominated by the animal character, betray the author's ascription of human attributes to his hero or villain. "Reynardine," by Donn Byrne, retails with haunting charm the friendship between the Fitzpauls and the fox, in an instance that tests the friendship. Foxes, for Morgan of the story, "took on for him now a strange, sinister ent.i.ty.... They had become to him a quasi-human, hypernormal race.... They had tabus as strict as a Maori's. Strange, mystical laws."--"Corkran of the Clamstretch" uniquely portrays the ugly and heroic "R.T.C." throughout as a gentleman, "who met triumph with boredom," and "defeat, as a great gentleman should, with quiet courtesy and good humour." Samuel A. Derieux adds "Comet" to his list of superintelligent dogs in a story the Committee regard as one of his best. It should be compared with R.G. Kirk's "Gun-Shy" (_Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_, October 22).

Similar in theme, in sympathy and in the struggle--that of a trainer to overcome a n.o.ble dog's fear of the powder roar--the stories diverge in the matter of workmanship. Yet "Gun-Shy" is based on a plot superior to that of "Comet." Oddly enough, the Committee preferred not one of the humanized-beast stories, but Edison Marshall's "The Heart of Little Shikara." The preference was because of a number of counts, however; moreover, the man eater takes second place beside Little Shikara, whose bravery and loyalty motivate the thrilling climax of the narrative. And it is just this: a superb story, with underscoring for "story."

Anthropomorphism is found at its height in "A Life," by Wilbur Daniel Steele. Dr. Edward J. Wheeler places this story first of the year's brief fiction, on the score of originality, power, and satisfactory evolution of the struggle, with its triumphant dramatic reverse. Other members of the Committee, though sensible of its claim to high distinction, believe it is a novelette, not to be cla.s.sed as a short story, and therefore barred from consideration. Its spirit, one affirms, lacks something of the vigour which made of "Guiablesse"

(_Harper's_, 1919) so convincing a work of art. Another member finds its value somewhat decreased in that its theme had been used similarly in John Masefield's "The Wanderer."

The child's place in the democracy of the short story was a.s.sured years ago. No remarkably outstanding examples have come from the pen of Booth Tarkington, amusing as are his adolescents and children of the _Red Book_ tales. The best combinations of humour and childhood appeared to the Committee to be "Wilfrid Reginald and the Dark Horse,"

by James Mahoney, and "Mr. Downey Sits Down," by L.H. Robbins. For laughter the reader is recommended to each of these, the latter of which is reprinted in this volume. For humour plus a trifle more of excitement, "Mummery," by Thomas Beer, is included. Mr. Beer has succeeded in handling Mrs. Egg as Miss Addington manages Miss t.i.twiler, the "Cactus"; that is, as the equal of author and reader, but also--and still without condescension--as reason for twinkles and smiles.

Apart from consideration of impulses dominating the short story of 1921, impulses here summarized under the general idea of democracy, the story is different in several particulars. First, its method of referring to drink, strong drink, marks it of the present year. The setting is frequently that of a foreign country, where prohibition is not yet known; the date of the action may be prior to 1919; or the apology for presence of intoxicating liquors is forthcoming in such statement as "My cellar is not yet exhausted, you see."

Second, the war is no longer tabu; witness "The Tribute," and "His Soul Goes Marching On." Touched by the patina of time and mellowed through the mellifluence of age, the war now makes an appeal dissimilar to that which caused readers two or three years ago to declare they were "fed up."

Third, Freudian theories have found organic place in the substance of the story. They have not yet found incorporation in many narratives that preserve short story structure, however--although it is within conceivability that the influence may finally burst the mould and create a new--and the Committee agree in demanding both substance and structure as short story essentials.

Finally, the story reflects the changing ideals of a constantly changing age. Not only are these ideals changing because of cross-currents that have their many sources in racial springs far asunder, not only because of contact or conflict between the ideals and cosmic forces dimly apprehended; also they are changing because of the undeniable influence of what Emerson called the Oversoul. The youth of the time is different, as youth is always different. But now and then a sharp cleavage separates the succeeding generations and it separates them now. The youth of England has found interpretation in Clemence Dane's play, "A Bill of Divorcement." In America, the interpretation is only half articulate; but when the incoherent sounds are wholly intelligible, the literature of the short story will have entered, in definite respects, upon a new era.

The Committee of Award wish once again to thank the authors, editors, and publishers whose cooperation makes possible this annual volume and the O. Henry Memorial Prizes.

Blanche Colton Williams.