The best short stories of 1922, and the yearbook of the American short story

"The best short stories of 1922, and the yearbook of the American short story" by Edward J. O’Brien is a collection of short stories written in the early 20th century. The anthology gathers notable American magazine fiction alongside a “yearbook” of trends, indexes, and honors, framed by the editor’s critical introduction. It showcases a broad range of styles—from modernist experiments to popular narratives—charting themes of work, family, war, identity, and a shifting national mood. The opening of the volume offers front matter and O’Brien’s introduction, where he warns of “disintegration” in American letters—both the lazy commercial formula and shallow imitation of European avant-gardes—then explains his selection tests of substance and form and his star-based ranking. The fiction begins with The Dark City, a twilight study of a suburban father whose evening routines and gardening yield to a recurring vision of a silent, menacing city; continues with I’m a Fool, a stablehand’s rueful confession after lying about his identity to impress a girl at the races; and follows with The Death of Murdo, in which a Romani chief, newly healed, engineers a fatal test to secure his tribe’s faith in a successor. It then turns to An Unknown Warrior, opening on a lone soldier entering a snow-shrouded Westminster Abbey.