O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1941

by Herschel Brickell (Editor)

Contributing Authors Kay Boyle, Eudora Welty, Hallie Southgate Abbott And Many More.

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1941

Reviews

[Linda Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually it's titled "The O. Henry Award Memorial Prize Stories of 1941." It's a book I found on the shelf in our Drummond Island cabin as I was dusting. The short stories selected for the O. Henry Award were culled from those published in the year in U.S. magazines, some of which still exist. Eudora Welty has the 2nd place short story, "A Worn Path," that is excellent. John Cheever and William Faulkner are within. Many are war-related stories, including the 1st place "Defeated" by Kay Boyle. William Faulkner's "The Old People" was marvelous, and the editor, in the foreword gave his opinion that Faulkner's short stories are much better than his novels which are difficult to read. A line in "The Old People" was sublime. "He was just gone one morning, the cabin vacant in which he had lived for years yet in which there never had been very much, the shop standing idle now in which there never had been very much to do." Paul Gallico's "The Snow Goose" was labeled "prolix" by one of the judges, and panned by another, but was one of my favorites; a satisfactory retelling of the beauty and the beast fable set at an abandoned and derelict lighthouse, with Dunkirk supplying the conflict.