Winners of the History Through Fiction Short Story Contest, The Blood of Englishmen uncovers the hidden histories that shape us all.

Across continents and centuries, the award-winning stories in The Blood of Englishmen illuminate lives lived at the margins of official history-moments of crisis, courage, and quiet transformation that ripple through families, communities, and nations. From earthquakes and wars to revolutions of faith, art, and survival, this powerful anthology brings forgotten voices into sharp, unforgettable focus.

A detective searches for meaning in a city consumed by fire. A wounded soldier confronts the weight of survival. A violinist wrestles with art, love, and identity in early 20th-century Europe. Aviators, pioneers, mothers, dreamers, and exiles face injustice, loss, and the shifting tides of history. Each story offers a vivid window into a world both distant and urgently familiar, revealing resilience and hope in the face of overwhelming odds.

Spanning ancient deserts, battlefields of World War I, Cold War America, the American frontier, and beyond, The Blood of Englishmen is a celebration of storytelling's power to recover what has been overlooked-and to connect us across time and place. These stories invite readers to encounter history not as a distant past, but as a living presence: intimate, urgent, and enduring.

Featuring the prize-winning stories:

• San Francisco Is Buckled, San Francisco Is Burning by Rachel Henderson
• Lucky by Zena Ryder
• Body #311 by Christopher DeWitt
• The Violinist by Ezra Harker Shaw
• The Blood of Englishmen by Cecil Beckett
• No Shelter by Nicole M. Babb
• The Presbyterian Settee by Rob Hardy
• The God of Sight by Morgan Want
• The Bright Leaf Legacy by Jacqueline Van Hoewyk
• Diary of an Empire by Shay Galloway