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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 title 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 coöperation 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, PhD., 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]

Babcock, 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). Benét, 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 (Saturday 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 (Saturday Evening Post, Apr. 24); The Cut-Glass Bowl (Scribner's, May); The Off-Shore Pirate (Saturday 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 (Saturday 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 (Saturday 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," Butterflies (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); God's Mercy (Pictorial Review, July); Footfalls (Pictorial Review, October). Synon, Mary, On Scarlet Wings (Red Book, July). Titus, 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 Ibañez, Maurice Level, A. Neil Lyons, Seumas MacManus, Leonard Merrick, Maria Moravsky, Alfred Noyes, May Sinclair and Hugh Walpole all illustrate 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 asseverates, "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:

"A backward glance over the short stories of the preceding twelve months discovers two facts. There are many of them, approximately between fifteen hundred and two thousand; there are, comparatively, few of merit."

[Footnote 6: The National Letters, in Prejudices, second series, Knopf, N.Y., 1920.]

[Footnote 7: April 24, 1920.]

"You have looked from the rear platform of the limited, across the widening distance, at a town passed a moment ago. A flourishing city, according to the prospectus; a commonplace aggregation of architecture, you say; respectable middle-class homes; time-serving cottages built on the same plan; a heaven-seeking spire; perhaps a work of art in library or townhall. You are rather glad that you have left it behind; rather certain that soon you will have rolled through another, its counterpart.

"But there may be hope, here, of sorts. For a typical American town represents twentieth century life and development, just as current short stories reflect conditions. If the writer failed to represent his age, to reflect its peculiar images, he would not serve it truly."

It is significant that these words preceded by only a few months the publication of Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street," which illustrates in a big and popular way the point in question. Work of satire that it is, it cannot but hold out a solution of the problem presented: in the sweep of the land to the Rockies lies a "dominion which will rise to unexampled greatness when other empires have grown senile."

America is young; its writers are young. But they are reflecting the many-coloured, multiform life of America, in journalism and in art. Quite naturally, they profit by all that has preceded them in other literatures. Since their work stands rooted in romanticism it may legitimately heighten the effects and lights of everyday life.

A glance at the stories republished by the O. Henry Memorial Award Committee for 1920 will reveal their varied nature. The genus Africanus is represented by "Black Art and Ambrose," which has a close second in another on the list, "The Metamorphosis of High Yaller," and a third in "The Ten-Share Horse" of E.K. Means. The tabulation reveals a number of cosmic types—Jewish, Chinese, English, French, Irish, Italian, American. The Chinese character is even more ubiquitous than in 1919, but the tales wherein he figures appear to the Committee to be the last drops in the bucket. Two exceptions occur: "Young China," by Charles Caldwell Dobie, and "Widows and Orphans," by Ellen La Motte. The former knows San Francisco Chinatown, the latter is acquainted with the Oriental at home. One of the Committee regards "The Daughter of the Bernsteins" as the best story of Jewish character. Another sees in it a certain crudeness. Its companions in the year were the tales of Bruno Lessing, Montague Glass, and—in particular—a story by Leon Kelley entitled "Speeches Ain't Business" (Pictorial Review, July).

But this note on the list is a digression. With regard to the stories reprinted, "The Last Room of All" illustrates old-world influence, surely, in its recountal of events in an age long past, the time of the Second Emperor Frederick of Swabia. In its revival of old forms, old customs, it is a masquerade. But behold that it is a gorgeous blood-coloured masquerade and that Cercamorte is a distinct portrait of the swash-buckler hero of those times.

The young Americans in "The Camel's Back" support a critical thesis made for their author that he is evolving an idiom. It is the idiom of young America. If you are over thirty, read one of this prodigy's ten-thousand word narratives and discover for the first time that you are separated by a hopeless chasm from the infant world.

"Professor Todd's Used Car" and "Alma Mater" are two of the numerous stories published in 1920 which take up the cudgels for the undertrodden college professor. Incidentally, it is interesting to read from a letter of Mr. Lewis: "The brevity—and the twist in the plot at the end—were consciously patterned on O. Henry's methods."

Without further enumeration of the human types, it is a matter of observation that they exist in many moods and ages as they exist in real life. A revenant who lived one hundred years ago might pick up this volume and secure a fairly accurate idea of society to-day. A visitor from another country might find it a guide to national intelligence and feeling.

A few stories appealed to the Committee for their poetry. "The Funeral of John Bixby," by Stephen Vincent Benét, and "The Duke's Opera," by "Jacques Belden" (the first an allegorical fantasy and the second a poetic-romance) are at the head of this division. With these should be included Don Marquis's "Death and Old Man Murtrie," for its sardonic allegory, and "The Designs of Miramon," by James Branch Cabell, for its social satire. Individual members of the Committee would have liked to include these—different members preferring different ones of the four—but the Committee as a whole saw the allegory or satire or poetry predominant over story values.

The mysterious and the tragic are found in the work of Mildred Cram and Wilbur Daniel Steele. "Odell" and "Wind" illustrate Miss Cram's particular genius in this direction: but "The Ember," it is voted, ranks first of her publications. Mr. Steele's "Both Judge and Jury" and "God's Mercy" are exotic, perhaps, but the atmosphere he creates is beguiling in comparison with that of mere everyday. "Footfalls" was selected out of an embarrassment of riches offered by this author. The best horror story of the year is Rose Sidney's "Butterflies." It is a Greek tragedy, unrelieved, to be taken or left without palliation.

Athletics, no one will deny, constitutes a definite phase of American life. The sport-struggle is best illustrated in the fiction of Lawrence Perry, whether it be that of a polo match, tennis game, or crew race. "A Matter of Loyalty" is representative of this contest, and in the combined judgment of the Committee the highest ranking of all Mr. Perry's stories. "Bills Playable," by Jonathan Brooks, conceives athletics in a more humorous spirit.

Animal stories fill page upon page of 1920 magazines. Edison Marshall, represented in the 1919 volume, by "The Elephant Remembers," has delivered the epic of "Brother Bill the Elk." In spite of its length, some fifteen thousand words, the Committee were mightily tempted to request it for republication. Its Western author knows the animals in their native lairs. "Break-Neck Hill," for which a member of the Committee suggests the more poignant "Heart-Break Hill" as title, expresses sympathy for the horse in a way the Committee believe hitherto unexploited. "Aliens" received more votes as the best dog story of the year.

Among a number of sea-tales are those by Richard Matthews Hallet, wherein Big Captain Hat appears. The woman sea-captain is by way of being, for the moment, a novel figure.

Anecdotal stories and very brief tales appear to have received editorial sanction in 1920. "No Flowers" is of the former genre, and whereas certain of the Committee see in the same author's "The Aristocrat" a larger story, they agree with the majority that the scintillance of this well-polished gem should give it setting here.

Variety of setting and diversity of emotion the reader will find in greater measure, perhaps, than in the first volume of this series. "Butterflies," for example, spells unrelieved horror; "The Face in the Window" demands sympathetic admiration for its heroine; to read "Contact!" means to suffer the familiar Aristotelian purging of the emotions through tears. And their locales are as widely dissimilar as are their emotional appeals. With these, all of which are reprinted herein, the reader will do well to compare Dorothy Scarborough's "Drought," for the pathos of a situation brought about by the elements of nature in Texas.

The Committee could not agree upon the first and second prize stories. The leaders were: "Each in His Generation," "Contact!" "The Thing They Loved," "The Last Room of All," "Slow Poison," "God's Mercy" and "Alma Mater." No story headed more than one list. The point system, to which resort was made, resulted in the first prize falling to "Each in His Generation," by Maxwell Struthers Burt, and the second to "Contact!", by Frances Newbold Noyes (now Frances Noyes Hart).

Mr. Burt's story of Henry McCain and his nephew Adrian compresses within legitimate story limits the antagonism between successive generations. Each representative, bound by traditions and customs of the particular age to which he belongs, is bound also by the chain of inheritance. One interested in the outcome of the struggle between the inexorable thrall of "period" and the inevitable bond of race will find the solution of the problem satisfactory, as will the reader who enjoys the individual situation and wishes most to find out whether Uncle Henry left his money to Adrian or rejected that choice for marriage with the marvellous lady of his own era.

"Contact!" is the first story by the author of "My A.E.F." and in its every line testifies to the vital interest Miss Noyes had and has in the boys who won the war—whether American, French or English. So much one would know from a single rapid reading. A critic might guess that it would have been impossible as a first story if the author had not lived much abroad, as she has done since she was very much of a child. At Oxford, or in the home of Gaston Paris, or travelling around the globe, she received the foundation for the understanding sympathy which endeared her as "Petite" to her soldier boys. A critic might also aver that the steady moving forward of the action, joined to the backward progress, yet both done so surely, could not have been achieved without years of training. And in this respect the narrative is little short of being a tour de force. But, as a matter of fact. Miss Noyes dreamed the whole thing! Her antecedent experience proved greater than mere technique.

The Committee wish to comment upon the irregularity of the output of fiction from month to month. May brought forth the greatest number of good stories, as November reaped the fewest. They wish, also, to register notice of the continued flexibility of the short story form. "The Judgment of Vulcan," at one extreme, in some thirteen thousand words none the less relates a short story; "Alma Mater," at the other, accomplishes the same end in two thousand. It is a matter of record that the Committee discovered a number of excellent examples containing not more than two thirds this latter number, a fact that argues against the merging of the short story and the novel. Finally, the Committee believe the fiction of the year 1920 superior to that of 1919.

BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS,

NEW YORK CITY,

March 3, 1921.