O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919

an are represented by spare sheaves. Again, a number of new and promising writers have not quite attained sureness of touch; although that they are acquiring it is manifest in the work of Ben Ames Williams, Edison Marshall, Frances Wood, Samuel Derieux, John Russell, Beatrice Ravenel and Myra Sawhill. Too frequently, there is "no story": a series of episodes however charmingly strung out is not a story; a sketch, however clever or humorous, is not a story; an essay, however wisely expounding a truth, is not a story. So patent are these facts, they are threadbare from repetition; yet of them succeeding aspirants seem to be as ignorant as were their predecessors--who at length found knowledge. For obvious reasons, names of authors who succeed in a certain literary form, but who produce no story are omitted.

Again, some stories just miss the highest mark. A certain one, praised by a magazine editor as the best of the year, suffers in the opinion of the Committee, or part of the Committee, from an introduction