The Best British Short Stories of 1922

1922 was a pivotal year for British letters. The Great War had reshaped everything, and writers were grappling with what came after. This anthology, assembled by the influential American anthologist Edward J.H. O'Brien, gathers the finest short stories published in British and Irish periodicals during that transformative moment. The collection captures a literary culture in transition: writers working in the tradition of Conrad and Kipling while sensing something new approaching on the horizon. The stories range across class, geography, and mood, some piercingly comic, others quietly devastating. An introduction by John Cournos frames the volume as a meditation on storytelling itself, arguing that the best short fiction achieves that rare alchemy where substance and form become inseparable. These are stories written for an age learning to live with uncertainty, and they speak to us still.