O. Henry Memorial Award prize stories of 1927

The 1927 O. Henry Prize stories capture American fiction at a pivotal moment. This collection gathers the year's most accomplished short fiction from American magazines, selected by judge Blanche Colton Williams. The range is extraordinary: Ernest Hemingway's "The Killers" pulses with brutal minimalism; other stories mine war, regional life, urban darkness, and folk comedy. What unites them is sharp observation and formal daring. These are stories written when the short story was America's literary form of choice, when magazines paid well and reached millions. The editorial framing places each story in context, explaining why these won. A century later, these pieces reveal what American writers were thinking, fearing, and laughing at in 1927.