Watson, Marion Elizabeth, Bottle Stoppers (_Pictorial Review_, June).
Wormser, G. Ranger, Gossamer (_Pictorial Review_, March).
The following stories are regarded the best of the year by the judges whose names are respectively indicated:
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 space determined by some expediency. Under the observation of the Committee have fallen a number of stories patently cut for space 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 space: "Surgery, however, must not become decapitation or such a trimming 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 passion for editorial cutting" is graphically illustrated in The _Authors' League Bulletin_ for December (page 8) by a mutilation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.