Prize Stories Of 1921 PDF Download

From The Publishers Weekly, Volume 101, March 1922: Short Story Prize Winners THE best short stories of the year of 1921, according to the award of the O. Henry Memorial Committee, was “The Heart of Little Shilkara," by Edison Marshall which appeared in Everybody's for January last (first prize of $500) and “The Man Who Cursed the Lilies,” by 'Charles Tenney Jackson, in Short Stories magazine of December 10th last (second prize of $250). These two prize winning stories head the list of sixteen tales which are published here under the title of “O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921.” This was the third year of the prize. In announcing the prizes. Dr. Blanche Colton Williams of Hunter College and Columbia University, Chairman of the O. Henry Memorial Committee, makes an interesting resumé of the short stories published in American magazines during the year. 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 remnants of purchases made in 'happier days. Improvement began with the return to better financial conditions. Two characteristics of stories published in 1921 reveal editorial policies that cannot but be harmful to the quality of this art. These earmarks are complementary and yet paradoxically antipodal. In order to draw out the torso and tail of a story thru 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 thru 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 practiced 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 space determined by some expediency. The O. Henry Memorial Award Committee was created by the Society of Arts and Sciences of New York in 1918. The committee consists of: Blanche Colton Williams, Ph. D., chairman; Edward J. Wheeler, Litt. D., Ethel Watts Mumford, Frances Gilchrist Wood, and Grove E. Wilson. The Society of Arts and Sciences will award the prizes at the annual dinner to be held on the evening of March 22nd.