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Title: O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921
Author: Various
Release Date: March 8, 2004 [EBook #11512]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIZE STORIES OF 1921 ***
CHOSEN BY THE SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS
1922
THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA. By Edison Marshall
THE MAN WHO CURSED THE LILIES. By Charles Tenney Jackson
THE URGE. By Maryland Allen
MUMMERY. By Thomas Beer
THE VICTIM OF HIS VISION. By Gerald Chittenden
MARTIN GERRITY GETS EVEN. By Courtney Ryley Cooper and Leo F. Creagan
STRANGER THINGS. By Mildred Cram
COMET. By Samuel A. Derieux
FIFTY-TWO WEEKS FOR FLORETTE. By Elizabeth Alexander Heermann
WILD EARTH. By Sophie Kerr
THE TRIBUTE. By Harry Anable Kniffin
THE GET-AWAY. By O.F. Lewis
"AURORE." By Ethel Watts Mumford
MR. DOWNEY SITS DOWN. By L.H. Robbins
THE MARRIAGE IN KAIRWAN. By Wilbur Daniel Steele
GRIT. By Tristram Tupper
The plan for the creation of the O. Henry Memorial Committee was
conceived and the work of the Committee inaugurated in the year 1918
by the late John F. Tucker, LL.M., then Directing Manager of the
Society of Arts and Sciences. The Society promptly approved the plan
and appropriated the sum necessary to inaugurate its work and to make
the award.
The Committee is, therefore, in a sense, a memorial to Mr. Tucker, as
well as to O. Henry. Up to the time of his death Mr. Tucker was a
constant adviser of the Committee and an attendant at most of its
meetings.
Born in New York City in 1871 and educated for the law, Mr. Tucker's
inclinations quickly swept him into a much wider stream of
intellectual development, literary, artistic, and sociological. He
joined others in reviving the Twilight Club (now the Society of Arts
and Sciences), for the broad discussion of public questions, and to
the genius he developed for such a task the success of the Society up
to the time of his death was chiefly due. The remarkable series of
dinner discussions conducted under his management, for many years, in
New York City, have helped to mould public opinion along liberal
lines, to educate and inspire. Nothing he did gave him greater pride
than the inception of the O. Henry Memorial Committee, and that his
name should be associated with that work perpetually this tribute is
hereby printed at the request of the Society of Arts and Sciences.
E.J.W.
In 1918 the Society of Arts and Sciences established, through its
Managing Director, John F. Tucker, the O. Henry Memorial. Since that
year the nature of the annual prize and the work of the Committee
awarding it have become familiar to writer, editor, and reader of
short stories. To the best short story written by an American and
published in America the sum of $500 is awarded; to the second best,
the sum of $250. In 1919 the prize winning story was Margaret Prescott
Montague's "England to America"; in 1920 it was Maxwell Struthers
Hurt's "Each in His Generation." Second winners were: 1919, Wilbur
Daniel Steele's "For They Know Not What They Do," and, 1920, Frances
Noyes Hart's "Contact!" [The prizes were delivered on June 2, 1920,
and on March 14, 1921, at the annual memorial dinner, Hotel Astor.]
BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, Ph. D., Chairman
EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt. D.
ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD
FRANCES GILCHRIST WOOD
GROVE E. WILSON
Henry Memorial
EDWARD J. WHEELER, Litt.D.
GLENN FRANK, Editor of _The Century Magazine_
GEORGE C. HOWARD, Attorney.
As in previous years each member of the Committee of Award held
himself responsible for reviewing the brief fiction of certain
magazines and for circulating such stories as warranted reading by
other members.
Results in 1921 differ in a number of respects from those of 1919 and
1920. In the earlier half year, January excepted, every reader
reported a low average of current fiction, so low as to excite
apprehension lest the art of the short story was rapidly declining.
The latter six months, however, marked a reaction, with a higher
percentage of values in November and December. Explanation of the low
level lies in the financial depression which forced a number of
editors to buy fewer stories, to buy cheaply, or to search their
vaults for remnant of purchases made in happier days. Improvement
began with the return to better financial conditions.
The several members of the Committee have seldom agreed on the
comparative excellence of stories, few being of sufficient superiority
in the opinion of the Committee as a whole to justify setting them
aside for future consideration. The following three dozen candidates,
more or less, average highest:
Elizabeth Alexander Heermann.] (_Saturday Evening Post_, August 13).
Allen, Maryland, The Urge (_Everybody's_, September).
Arbuckle, Mary, Wasted (_Midland_, May).
Beer, Thomas, Mummery (_Saturday Evening Post_, July 30).
O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 by Various
