Prize Stories 1995: The O. Henry Awards

by William Abrahams

Overview

So many great novels in the Western canon began as mere magazine stories. In this amazing collection, editor William Abrahams brings the best literature that periodicals had to give during 1995. These prize winning stories will not only entertain but give a glimpse into the mindset of the mid-nineties.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385476720
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/1995
Series:	The O. Henry Prize Collection
Edition description:	75TH ANNIVERSARY
Pages:	398
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Born in 1919, William Abrahams published four successful novels and a number of poems before finding his true calling as an editor. He presided over the O. Henry Awards for more than 30 years starting in 1965. Abrahams also worked as the west coast editor of Atlantic Monthly Press and collaborated on nonfiction books with his partner, Peter Stansky. He passed away in 1998.

Editorial Reviews

This 75th volume in the O. Henry Memorial Award series has something for all fiction readersor all short story readers, at least. Authors range from the expected veterans of the genre (Alice Adams's beach town story about a couple in Mexico, John Updike's version of his mother's last months, a dog story from Joyce Carol Oates) to well-known up-and-comers (Ellen Gilchrist, Charles Baxter, Perri Klass) to the lesser known. Those looking for the "multicultural" will be disappointed; the collection is fairly Anglo. With this same exception, contents vary widely as well, although retrospection is a recurring theme. The first prize winner, Cornelia Nixon's "The Women Come and Go," is stock and predictable, with a twist of the title allusion into a pun, but there is still plenty of merit here to justify purchase by most public and academic libraries.Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.

Library Journal