Major Works
- O. Henry Memorial Prize Short Stories (1941-51) Editor
- Writers on Writing (1949) Editor
Biography
Born in 1889 in Senatobia, Mississippi, Brickell spent his early years in Yazoo City. He attended the University of Mississippi in 1908, where he was editor of the University of Mississippi Magazine. Brickell did not graduate from the university and left in 1910.
He served as the editor of several newspapers in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. In 1919 he moved to New York City and worked at the Evening Post.From 1919 to 1928, Brickell was Senior Cultural Relations Assistant to the American Embassy in Colombia and continued to work for the State Department after his return to the United States in 1943.
He received the Guggenheim Award for general non-fiction in 1939. From 1941 to 1951, He was the editor of the O’Henry Prize Stories.
Brickell died in 1952 and is buried in Jackson, Mississippi.
Yazoo City, Mississippi, has a Henry Herschel Brickell Memorial Literary Walkway which honors Yazoo City residents who became authors.