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charityjohnson's review
3.0
It's been a long time since I read my last O Henry short story (1977?). I started in 9th grade and wound up in when I was almost 30. Always a good read.
smcleish's review
5.0
Originally published on my blog here in March-September 1999.
The Four Million
A common location and subject - New York and the four million people who lived there at the turn of the century, unite O. Henry's earliest collection of short stories. Each story is fairly typical of his work - short, the longest in this edition being four pages; having a happy ending which may seem a little sentimental to modern tastes (though that doesn't stop people reading, say, Louisa M. Alcott). Each one is skilfully written, painting a picture of its characters in a few phrases.
Most of the characters in these stories belong to one fairly specific group of people, not unrelated to the market for the journals and magazines in which the O. Henry's stories were originally published. They are mainly young people in low-paid office work (stenographers and the like), living in cheap boarding houses and eating in cheap restaurants.
The best stories are perhaps those which have some sort of wry twist, rather than the sentimental happy endings of the others, such as Lost on Dress Parade or The Coming Out of Maggie, while those in which a man forgets he married the night before - of which there are several - are the weakest. O. Henry also attempts something rather different in Memoirs of a Yellow Dog, and this does not quite come off.
Heart of the West
In O. Henry's second collection of short stories, the location shifts from New York to Texas, at the end of the era which inspired the Hollywood "Wild West". As in most of Henry's work, the stories are brief with a romantic ending (though this collection includes some that do not even have a happy ending). His West is not as remote from reality as Hollywood's, but his reliance on the good side of human nature does make his stories appear to inhabit the realms of fantasy.
The life in these stories is not as violent, not as ruled by the gun, as it is in the Hollywood version, nor is it quite so simplistic. There are no real bad guys, just unfortunates who have allowed circumstances to get on top of them, or drink to rule their lives. They are generally redeemed through exposure to the honest, open-air life of the country, which Henry seems to have regarded as one to admire and which he certainly seemed to use to take people out of the way they lived before into a morally clean world.
Henry's general theme, the mysterious ways of men and women in love, is apparent in may of the stories in this collection. (A plot shared by several, for example, is the rich man not permitting his daughter to marry the poor but honest man she loves but whom he believes is a fortune hunter.) This emphasis, which seems to be on the sentimental and arch side to a modern reader, makes Henry's writing seem old-fashioned; but it cannot be denied that he was a master of the short story genre.
The Gentle Grafter
This particular collection of O. Henry's short stories was the first one I read, many years ago, and it remains one of his best in my opinion. Like earlier collections, the stories share a common theme. In this case, though, the theme itself helps to prevent the descent into sentimentality which is Henry's main fault as far as modern readers are concerned. The world portrayed by The Gentle Grafter is that of the small time conman; the stories generally describe a particular deception.
The stories - all but one - share a main character, Jeff Peters. This adds cohesion to the collection, something which Henry takes further in Cabbages and Kings, which lies between a novel and a short story in form. Jeff Peters is a conman with a conscience, which makes him a sympathetic rather than a villainous character. Some of his conscience is more humorous than moral, like his insistence that none of his customers go away completely empty handed, even if what they receive bears no relation in value to the amount of money they have been parted from. On the other hand, he does refuse to cheat widows or orphans, an at one point when he discovers that his partner in one scam has done just that he insists that all the money is returned.
Roads of Destiny
Roads of Destiny is O. Henry's longest collection of short stories, containing tales that are longer than the two or three page miniatures which fill the other volumes of his work. The title story is probably his lengthiest individual story. It is distinctly more experimental than most of O. Henry's output, being reminiscent of Ambrose Bierce or Edgar Allan Poe. The idea is simple enough; the young French shepherd David sets out for Paris, seeking fame and fortune with his poetry, the toast of his native village. He reaches a junction, with no clues as to which way to go. The story then splits into three, one part for each choice (left fork, right fork, or turn back). But the road he takes doesn't matter, for they all lead to his destiny: to be killed with a pistol belonging to the Marquis de Beaupertys. The story itself is told in Henry's usual style, so it is rather less hard edged than Bierce or Poe, but it carries an unusually stern message (that we cannot escape our fate).
There is a book by Peter Dickinson called Chance, Luck and Destiny, a collection of anecdotes, stories, and non-fictional writing (if you count descriptions of methods used by fortune-tellers as non-fiction). One of the strands which runs through this book is a set of stories based on the Oedipus legend, which detail different ways in which he could have lived his life, yet still have ended up killing his father and marrying his mother. For example, in one version, he could have disbelieved the oracle, returning to his adoptive parents, taken part in a war with Thebes in which he killed Laius in battle and received Jocasta as part of the booty.
Such non-linear narratives are today relatively common, particularly after the popularity of role playing game books, where the reader chooses from a series of options at the end of each section. ("If you go through the door, turn to page 67.) But Roads of Destiny is one of the earliest examples of such writing that I know of.
Cabbages and Kings
Cabbages and Kings is still a rather unusual book, even after the experimentation with narrative form that has characterised much of twentieth century literature. With Roads of Destiny it was clear that O. Henry occasionally wanted to do new things with the short story form, and not just continue to produce the slightly sentimental shorts which had brought him popularity.
He experimented with the form of the short story while continuing to write about the same sorts of subjects in the same accessible style. In Cabbages and Kings it is the idea of a collection of short stories that Henry plays with, writing what is in effect a novel consisting of short stories. Some parts of the book amount to chapters put in to glue the stories together, while other stories have little relevance to the main plot.
This main plot is concerned with revolutionary politics in the fictional South American state of Anchuria, particularly the involvement with them of American citizens resident in the country. The President of Anchuria, Miraflores, has fled the capital with $100,000 from the treasury; he must be captured before he reaches the coast. In the coastal town of Coralio, he and his mistress are discovered, Miraflores kills himself, but the money disappears. The only two people who could know anything about it, the American Goodwin who found him, and Miraflores' mistress, now married to Goodwin, are too important to be suspected, and Goodwin is well known for his honesty.
As the new president, Losada, begins to show signs that his rule will become oppressive even by the standards of South America at the time, opposition grows; and this forms the background to Cabbages and Kings. However, the best stories as short stories are those which have little relationship with this background, such as the sequence starting with Shoes centring on the young US consul John de Graffenried Atwood.
This indicates that in the end Cabbages and Kings fails as an experiment; Henry's craft is so wedded to the short story form of which he was one of the greatest masters that the extended structure does not come at all naturally. The single background is a bit of a straightjacket, and it tends to fragment whenever Henry has an idea which interests him.
Options
Options, O. Henry's sixth short story collection, marks a retreat from the experiments of Cabbages and Kings and Roads of Destiny. The stories in Options are all typical Henry, masterfully put together short stories perhaps a little sentimental for modern tastes. Unlike earlier collections, Options lacks any unifying themes. It contains stories set in each of the venues established as Henry's location in these earlier collections: the big city and the West of the United States, and South America. This diversity is reflected in the collection title.
Options is perhaps the most unsatisfactory of the collections published in Henry's lifetime, having the thrown together feel that characterised the ones made of stories not previously published in book form that appeared after his death. Its diversity does make it reasonably interesting to read through in one sitting, but I prefer the virtuosity apparent in the earlier collections where Henry continually finds new variation on a theme (most obviously in The Gentle Grafter).
Sixes and Sevens
The last collection of O. Henry's short stories made during his lifetime, like the preceding one (Options), is a heterogeneous group of tales typical of the writer. He left approximately as much uncollected material, generally not as high a standard as that which had been published in book form.
My favourite story in Sixes and Sevens is The Champion of the Weather, in which a cowboy from the remote Kiowa Reservation visits New York. He is amazed when no one speaks to him the whole time he is there - this general consequence of modern city life is totally foreign to him. The story is about his efforts to have a conversation about anything with someone, including the weather. It is an inconsequential little tale, but it shows Henry at his amusing best.
The Four Million
A common location and subject - New York and the four million people who lived there at the turn of the century, unite O. Henry's earliest collection of short stories. Each story is fairly typical of his work - short, the longest in this edition being four pages; having a happy ending which may seem a little sentimental to modern tastes (though that doesn't stop people reading, say, Louisa M. Alcott). Each one is skilfully written, painting a picture of its characters in a few phrases.
Most of the characters in these stories belong to one fairly specific group of people, not unrelated to the market for the journals and magazines in which the O. Henry's stories were originally published. They are mainly young people in low-paid office work (stenographers and the like), living in cheap boarding houses and eating in cheap restaurants.
The best stories are perhaps those which have some sort of wry twist, rather than the sentimental happy endings of the others, such as Lost on Dress Parade or The Coming Out of Maggie, while those in which a man forgets he married the night before - of which there are several - are the weakest. O. Henry also attempts something rather different in Memoirs of a Yellow Dog, and this does not quite come off.
Heart of the West
In O. Henry's second collection of short stories, the location shifts from New York to Texas, at the end of the era which inspired the Hollywood "Wild West". As in most of Henry's work, the stories are brief with a romantic ending (though this collection includes some that do not even have a happy ending). His West is not as remote from reality as Hollywood's, but his reliance on the good side of human nature does make his stories appear to inhabit the realms of fantasy.
The life in these stories is not as violent, not as ruled by the gun, as it is in the Hollywood version, nor is it quite so simplistic. There are no real bad guys, just unfortunates who have allowed circumstances to get on top of them, or drink to rule their lives. They are generally redeemed through exposure to the honest, open-air life of the country, which Henry seems to have regarded as one to admire and which he certainly seemed to use to take people out of the way they lived before into a morally clean world.
Henry's general theme, the mysterious ways of men and women in love, is apparent in may of the stories in this collection. (A plot shared by several, for example, is the rich man not permitting his daughter to marry the poor but honest man she loves but whom he believes is a fortune hunter.) This emphasis, which seems to be on the sentimental and arch side to a modern reader, makes Henry's writing seem old-fashioned; but it cannot be denied that he was a master of the short story genre.
The Gentle Grafter
This particular collection of O. Henry's short stories was the first one I read, many years ago, and it remains one of his best in my opinion. Like earlier collections, the stories share a common theme. In this case, though, the theme itself helps to prevent the descent into sentimentality which is Henry's main fault as far as modern readers are concerned. The world portrayed by The Gentle Grafter is that of the small time conman; the stories generally describe a particular deception.
The stories - all but one - share a main character, Jeff Peters. This adds cohesion to the collection, something which Henry takes further in Cabbages and Kings, which lies between a novel and a short story in form. Jeff Peters is a conman with a conscience, which makes him a sympathetic rather than a villainous character. Some of his conscience is more humorous than moral, like his insistence that none of his customers go away completely empty handed, even if what they receive bears no relation in value to the amount of money they have been parted from. On the other hand, he does refuse to cheat widows or orphans, an at one point when he discovers that his partner in one scam has done just that he insists that all the money is returned.
Roads of Destiny
Roads of Destiny is O. Henry's longest collection of short stories, containing tales that are longer than the two or three page miniatures which fill the other volumes of his work. The title story is probably his lengthiest individual story. It is distinctly more experimental than most of O. Henry's output, being reminiscent of Ambrose Bierce or Edgar Allan Poe. The idea is simple enough; the young French shepherd David sets out for Paris, seeking fame and fortune with his poetry, the toast of his native village. He reaches a junction, with no clues as to which way to go. The story then splits into three, one part for each choice (left fork, right fork, or turn back). But the road he takes doesn't matter, for they all lead to his destiny: to be killed with a pistol belonging to the Marquis de Beaupertys. The story itself is told in Henry's usual style, so it is rather less hard edged than Bierce or Poe, but it carries an unusually stern message (that we cannot escape our fate).
There is a book by Peter Dickinson called Chance, Luck and Destiny, a collection of anecdotes, stories, and non-fictional writing (if you count descriptions of methods used by fortune-tellers as non-fiction). One of the strands which runs through this book is a set of stories based on the Oedipus legend, which detail different ways in which he could have lived his life, yet still have ended up killing his father and marrying his mother. For example, in one version, he could have disbelieved the oracle, returning to his adoptive parents, taken part in a war with Thebes in which he killed Laius in battle and received Jocasta as part of the booty.
Such non-linear narratives are today relatively common, particularly after the popularity of role playing game books, where the reader chooses from a series of options at the end of each section. ("If you go through the door, turn to page 67.) But Roads of Destiny is one of the earliest examples of such writing that I know of.
Cabbages and Kings
Cabbages and Kings is still a rather unusual book, even after the experimentation with narrative form that has characterised much of twentieth century literature. With Roads of Destiny it was clear that O. Henry occasionally wanted to do new things with the short story form, and not just continue to produce the slightly sentimental shorts which had brought him popularity.
He experimented with the form of the short story while continuing to write about the same sorts of subjects in the same accessible style. In Cabbages and Kings it is the idea of a collection of short stories that Henry plays with, writing what is in effect a novel consisting of short stories. Some parts of the book amount to chapters put in to glue the stories together, while other stories have little relevance to the main plot.
This main plot is concerned with revolutionary politics in the fictional South American state of Anchuria, particularly the involvement with them of American citizens resident in the country. The President of Anchuria, Miraflores, has fled the capital with $100,000 from the treasury; he must be captured before he reaches the coast. In the coastal town of Coralio, he and his mistress are discovered, Miraflores kills himself, but the money disappears. The only two people who could know anything about it, the American Goodwin who found him, and Miraflores' mistress, now married to Goodwin, are too important to be suspected, and Goodwin is well known for his honesty.
As the new president, Losada, begins to show signs that his rule will become oppressive even by the standards of South America at the time, opposition grows; and this forms the background to Cabbages and Kings. However, the best stories as short stories are those which have little relationship with this background, such as the sequence starting with Shoes centring on the young US consul John de Graffenried Atwood.
This indicates that in the end Cabbages and Kings fails as an experiment; Henry's craft is so wedded to the short story form of which he was one of the greatest masters that the extended structure does not come at all naturally. The single background is a bit of a straightjacket, and it tends to fragment whenever Henry has an idea which interests him.
Options
Options, O. Henry's sixth short story collection, marks a retreat from the experiments of Cabbages and Kings and Roads of Destiny. The stories in Options are all typical Henry, masterfully put together short stories perhaps a little sentimental for modern tastes. Unlike earlier collections, Options lacks any unifying themes. It contains stories set in each of the venues established as Henry's location in these earlier collections: the big city and the West of the United States, and South America. This diversity is reflected in the collection title.
Options is perhaps the most unsatisfactory of the collections published in Henry's lifetime, having the thrown together feel that characterised the ones made of stories not previously published in book form that appeared after his death. Its diversity does make it reasonably interesting to read through in one sitting, but I prefer the virtuosity apparent in the earlier collections where Henry continually finds new variation on a theme (most obviously in The Gentle Grafter).
Sixes and Sevens
The last collection of O. Henry's short stories made during his lifetime, like the preceding one (Options), is a heterogeneous group of tales typical of the writer. He left approximately as much uncollected material, generally not as high a standard as that which had been published in book form.
My favourite story in Sixes and Sevens is The Champion of the Weather, in which a cowboy from the remote Kiowa Reservation visits New York. He is amazed when no one speaks to him the whole time he is there - this general consequence of modern city life is totally foreign to him. The story is about his efforts to have a conversation about anything with someone, including the weather. It is an inconsequential little tale, but it shows Henry at his amusing best.
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