| Title | : | The Best Short Stories of O. Henry |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0679601228 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780679601227 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1945 |
The Best Short Stories of O. Henry Reviews
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"Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other."
The writers of short stories, the bar has been set. And it's really high. I've known it since I was about eight or nine, when my mother (bless the heart of the amazing literature teacher I have the privilege to be descended from!) slipped me a nondescript brown-cover book opened to the page with the title 'The Gift of the Magi'.
I read the story, and then the rest of a hundred or so in that little brown book, and the impossible standard for all the writers of short fiction has been firmly set in my stubborn over-cluttered brain.
This bar was really set over a hundred years ago by a certain O.Henry, a prolific New York magazine writer (and, of course, former rancher, bank teller, fugitive and convicted criminal, and a man whose last words, the legend has it, were, "Pull up the shades so I can see New York. I don't want to go home in the dark") who was easily cranking out a story or two a week - and yet somehow despite the rush and demand and the copious amounts of alcohol was able to create sketches and snippets of the life of everyday people that carried that *something* for which a regular typewriter/keyboard word-churner would probably have given a limb or two without the slightest hesitation.
It's been over a hundred years since these stories were published, and the population of New York has doubled since the days of
The Four Million, and yet O.Henry's writing has not aged, has not become obscure or irrelevant or any other of the disparaging adjectives one can apply to fiction.
The are many reasons why these stories remained timelessly readable and relevant. For instance, the conversational, gently playful but yet kind tone that somehow manages to teeter just on the verge of irony. The humor that shines in every page, in every sentence. The we-came-to-expect-it twist at the end of every story - still taking the reader by surprise, even when we think we got this O.Henry twist thingy down. The humorous and meandering introductions to the stories that may or may not have direct relationship to the actual storyline, but nevertheless are essential to it. The amazing amount of subtle and gentle and yet very apt characterization that manages to happen in the stories that are just a few pages long.
But I think the main reason for the timelessness is that people essentially have not changed over the century."Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other. We often hear "shop-girls" spoken of. No such persons exist. There are girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth Avenue as "marriage-girls."
O.Henry wrote about people; the everyday 'little people', mostly those of New York (even though there will be a fair few set in the West and the South of the US, and an entire collection in a 'banana republic' of South America). Those who were usually beneath the notice of the 'great and powerful' of this world.
According to
The stories focus on the moments in life of the 'four million', always keeping their unique individuality in focus and not the study of them as a group. We see the shop girls, and struggling clerks, cabbies, small-time crooks, residents of furnished rooms or cheap furnished apartments, artists, secretaries, and even a likely few of the 'four hundred' in their run-ins with the remaining 3,999,600, those who "came to the big city to find work because there was not enough to eat at their homes to go around."
the 'connoisseur' of the 'cream of society' of that time Ward McAllister, there were only about four hundred people in New York who mattered (the list lives on, despite its idiocy - think of Forbes 400, for example). According to O.Henry, there were a few more - four million, to be exact, the entire population of the metropolis at the time.
As the introduction to his best-known collection 'The Four Million' simply states:
"Not very long ago some one invented the assertion that there were only "Four Hundred" people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen--the census taker--and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the "Four Million.""Dulcie lived in a furnished room. There is this difference between a furnished room and a boarding-house. In a furnished room, other people do not know it when you go hungry."
Most of the stories are the simple snippets of life - be it in a big city or on a remote ranch. The everyday troubles and pleasures. Many of them are love stories - not the romance stories kind of love but the kind that springs to life in the tiny furnished apartments after long hours of low-paid work which still does not manage to leech the humanity of those who are not the society's cream:
"One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
Our world is a constant contrast of haves and have nots, and have nots have to try very hard just to stay afloat, just to get something out of life that is not very gentle to them. The differences between the wealthy and the poor are highlighted - but the decision of what to do with the highlights is left up to you. O.Henry does not preach; he just provides a gentle voice to those who usually don't get it.
[...]
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim.""During her first year in the store, Dulcie was paid five dollars per week. It would be instructive to know how she lived on that amount. Don't care? Very well; probably you are interested in larger amounts. Six dollars is a larger amount. I will tell you how she lived on six dollars per week.
And yet the stories are not written to be the social critique, to pursue an agenda, to stir up anger. They seem to be written just to give the voice to the 3,999,600 that otherwise just quietly go about their lives in the streets of a big city or the fields of the West, keeping their dignity, and finding little pleasures in life, and asking for no condescending pity, and just being people.
[...]
For the room, Dulcie paid two dollars per week. On week-days her breakfast cost ten cents; she made coffee and cooked an egg over the gaslight while she was dressing. On Sunday mornings she feasted royally on veal chops and pineapple fritters at "Billy's" restaurant, at a cost of twenty-five cents—and tipped the waitress ten cents. New York presents so many temptations for one to run into extravagance. She had her lunches in the department-store restaurant at a cost of sixty cents for the week; dinners were $1.05. The evening papers—show me a New Yorker going without his daily paper!—came to six cents; and two Sunday papers—one for the personal column and the other to read—were ten cents. The total amounts to $4.76. Now, one has to buy clothes, and—
I give it up. I hear of wonderful bargains in fabrics, and of miracles performed with needle and thread; but I am in doubt. I hold my pen poised in vain when I would add to Dulcie's life some of those joys that belong to woman by virtue of all the unwritten, sacred, natural, inactive ordinances of the equity of heaven. Twice she had been to Coney Island and had ridden the hobby-horses. 'Tis a weary thing to count your pleasures by summers instead of by hours."
You don't need to write angry speeches about social injustices when you can just leave your reader with this:"As I said before, I dreamed that I was standing near a crowd of prosperous-looking angels, and a policeman took me by the wing and asked if I belonged with them.
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"Who are they?" I asked.
"Why," said he, "they are the men who hired working-girls, and paid 'em five or six dollars a week to live on. Are you one of the bunch?"
"Not on your immortality," said I. "I'm only the fellow that set fire to an orphan asylum, and murdered a blind man for his pennies."
It was an amazing read when I was a child, and remained such through the years. The bar set high back then still holds. And what I found interesting was that the same stories that struck me the most as a child had the same impact on me, the proud owner of about 50 gray hairs. They are here, and I encourage you to take a look, and revisit the magic of O.Henry - or maybe discover it for the very first time:
The Gift of the Magi
The Last Leaf
An Unfinished Story
The Furnished Room
The Trimmed Lamp
While the Auto Waits -
Accused of embezzling money from a Texas bank, O Henry (1862-1910) bolted to SoAmerica in the late 1900s and only returned when his wife was dying of TB. There seems to be a murkiness about what actually happened, but I'm not keen enough to read a bio. OH's wife expired and he spent 3 years in prison. A gifted writer and a likeable chap, he had a venturesome life. The big question for me, still lacking an ending - twist or not - is, why did he bolt? Well, so much for that.
Like most GRs, I read OH in middle school and forgot about him until soppy reviews on GR tweaked me with a sense of nostalgia, and---. Everyone here cites 3 stories : The Gift of the Magi, The Last Leaf, and The Ransom of Red Chief. Didn't they read anything else? OH is very, very sentimental and heartwarming; his stories, w elements borrowed by Hollywood for decades, are aimed at pre-teens, Scout's honor. Unselfishness, sacrifice, kindness are qualities throughout his homespun fables....qualities that children should be taught.
Example: A young woman, dying of pneumonia in "The Last Leaf" is certain she will die when the last leaf falls from a tree outside her wintry window. The leaf doesnt fall and she regains her health. Then we find out : an elderly neighbor painted the leaf, though he caught a cold for his good deed and quickly withered away....(OH can't resist the cheap ending).
OH has stories for all seasons...all giving voice to a (dated), sugared, Sunday School Americana. I prefer Maupassant and a Seidlitz powder. -
Един истински вълшебник. Невероятен.
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And you thought O. Henry was just a witty name for a mediocre candy bar..."O" no!! This guy's another master of the English language, and I'm a sucker for a good short story. "Gift of the Magi" and "The Last Leaf" are unmatched. Its just a shame they couldn't have named a tasty Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor after him instead.
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Dearest Reader,
It is with the greatest pleasure I bring to your attention one of the most excellent writer of the nineteen and twentieth centuries, O. Henry. In his time, O. Henry wrote over six hundred short stories that continue to delight readers to this day. His work is entirely memorable, once you have read “The Ransom of Red Chief” or “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen”, you will never forget them. The writing is generally humorous, with a profound awareness of social ills.
Some may find the stories pointless; I think this is to be expected. He writes about ‘real life’, but in such a way as to make it fascinating. O. Henry creates awareness about our culture even while making fun of it. How can that be, you might ask, when O. Henry was writing to a completely different generation of people? Well, that is just part of the fun! We might not live in an era of shop-girls and cabbie horses, but human nature is still the same and that is exactly what O. Henry writes about. He encourages one to come in, sit down, and simply enjoy. Read with tongue in cheek, a dose of humor, and willingness for awareness, you are sure to enjoy!
One of my favorite stories is “The Cop and the Anthem.” “Soapy”, as the main character is known, is an all-around loafer who’s goal is to get sent to prison for the winter months. They provide warmth, food, and in his mind, the perfect winter retreat. Unfortunately, he can’t seem to get arrested! No matter what he does, it doesn’t work. He breaks a window, eats without paying, even attempts to abduct a woman, but nothing works! Finally, as he walks past a church, he experiences a “sudden and wonderful change in his soul.” He decides to completely turn his life around, get a job, and become a productive man of society. At that moment a police officer wanders over and arrests him for loafing. He is sentenced to jail for the winter months!
Not all of his works are humorous, such as “The Unfinished Story” or the ever depressing, “Gift of the Magi.” This does not mean they are bad. They tend to express more awareness of human life and rely more on the bitter-sweet then funny. To say that one is better than the other is beyond me, all of O. Henry is excellent.
I hope you will read and enjoy as much as I.
Yours Truly,
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I read these stories over and over. Even though you know the ending, it's still cool the way they twist!
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Some touching moments (see the Leaf story), some very unusual settings, and some poignant twists. At other times, however, the reader can see his trademark twist coming a mile away. Maybe he's a victim of his posterity. Like when you go to watch Spaceballs because it was so awesome when you saw it 20-something years ago, but the humor has been redone so many times since then the movie is innefective. It's not Mel Brooks's fault! Or maybe Spaceballs is just lame, and you were only 12 so the lameness was mistaken for awesomeness...
In any case, I liked, but didn't love O. Henry's stories as a whole. -
Actually, the book is better than my expectations. Stories are so funny, fluent and a bit ironic. As summary; a love service, medicine and robbery, Jim's watch and Della's hairs, voluntarily to have a feud! Voluntarily to had beat up! If the love elixir given the wrong person, one police convict at the train, A loft, one meeting after 20 years at the same place, social triangle, farewell of robber, able to friend with burglar. I like it, the book recommended.
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I read these thirty-eight stories with various degrees of engagement; some I finished following the plot with ease, others I felt I had just scanned without any ability to recall who did what to whom. O. Henry appeared to construct his stories with a similar plot device, a surprise hook at the very end of each tale. I enjoyed several, including The Gift of the Magi and The Ransom of Red Chief. As I was reading along, I thought all these stories are the right length to be recited aloud following a family meal, maybe a weekly undertaking that could become a tradition, involving other authors, something to break the electronica invading our lives and unite families for a brief moment.
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I discovered this book one day long ago on my parents bookshelf. It's kind of a smaller book and had been stuck between a huge atlas of the universe and the wall. Once I liberated it I decided to take my dad's advice (If you're bored go read O. Henry) and now I have my own copy sitting on my bookshelf gathering dust and waiting to be discovered by someone new.
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Едно малко бижу, което се чете на един дъх.
Любим О.Хенри. -
Много приятни, леко тъжни, но много обнадеждаващи разкази. Три къси истории, които много ми напомнят "Щастливият принц" на Оскар Уайлд. Същата тъга, но и благородна любов, човешка топлина има в тях.
Чете се бързо и леко, а има над какво да се помисли по тях.
Първият разказ "Хиляда долара" ми е любим. -
I love O. Henry. I've a collection of his stories, but I'm not sure if it's actually this edition or not. At any rate, my favorite of his short stories is "The Pride of the Cities". It's probably available as an e-text SOMEwhere. Give it a perusal, the ending is too perfect for words. (There's a bit of a pun in that last comment)
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I'm sure these had a time and place but in the present(jaded, cynical) world the stories had a saccharine overload. I eventually needed to bail and toss this in the trash. (I was never a big fan of the O. Henry candy bar, either.)
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O.Henry hikayelerinde genelde mizahi bir dil kullanıyor. İroni hakim tüm anlattıklarında. Yüreğindeki tüm trajedileri, şaşırtıcı sonlarıyla hikayeleştirmiş.
Benim, O.Henry deyince hep aklıma, en sevdiğim hikaye olan , Son Yaprak hikayesi geliyor.
Herkesin bildiği bir hikaye... -
The twists at the end of the tale are always breath taking.
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077-Short Stories of O. Henry-O. Henry-Novel-1887
Barack
—— "The key point is not which path we choose. The kind of people we eventually become is determined by our inner nature."
"Selected Stories of O. Henry" contains the representative works of O. Henry's short stories. A Novel book. The biggest feature of these short stories is that the plot is compact and the ending is amazing.
O. Henry, born in Greensboro, North Carolina, the USA in 1862, died of cirrhosis in 1910. He dropped out of high school in 1977 and began to be an apprentice in a pharmacy. In 1887, he and 19-year-old Athol Estes secretly ran to the church to marry the girl's parents. In the same year, O. Henry began publishing works in public journals.
In 1897, his wife died of tuberculosis. In 1898, O. Henry was arrested and imprisoned. In 1901, he was released after serving his sentence. In 1902, O. Henry became a professional writer, gaining fame and fortune. But he was squandering and was caught in the habit of alcoholism. Later, to alleviate economic pressure, he had to write novels at a rapid rate in exchange for manuscript fees, which also led to the uneven quality of his works.
He often drinks and gambles on Saturdays and Saturdays, and spends a day writing a short story on the seventh day, which is then published to magazines. Representative works: "Maggie's Gift", "The Last Leaf", "Police and Hymns", etc.
Sometimes I am confused by people's attitudes towards love and bread. Some people say that without bread, there is no love because love can endure momentary hunger and cold, but it cannot give people the patience to endure hardship for a long time. Some people say that without love, bread is tasteless. Because money can buy marriage, but not true love.
This story is very touching and shocking. When I was a freshman, the English teacher asked everyone to perform this play. But, when painting in the rain, heavy rain should immediately wash away the paint. Only on sunny days can painting succeed. So, I think this is a minor flaw in this novel.
The novel depicts several scammers who sell fakes, thieves who steal, or robbers who kill more people. It is doubtful whether such scammers are everywhere in the United States at the end of the 19th century? At the end of the 20th century, the film described the westward movement as desirable. It can be seen that most of them do not care much about the facts, they are willing to believe in the beautifying description.
It doesn't look like a good person's liar, it's not a clever one. Only those thieves who look sincere and reliable can be regarded as outstanding. So how can you ignore appearance? Most people still judge the quality of people through vision, especially when people lack long enough contact with each other.
Stealing also makes sense. Some people who violate the law may also have their moral standards. And some people who have not violated the law may be criticized on certain moral standards. The law must be obeyed by everyone, but the ethical rules and rules of handling that each person makes for himself may be very different. The former often have clear right and wrong, while the latter is probably nothing wrong.
A type of writer's novel makes it easy for the reader to guess the ending, or the ending is not so important for the story itself. Because the purpose of this type of writer is not to tell the reader what happened later. Instead, it leads the reader to experience the whole process together. Get some kind of feeling or revelation.
O. Henry is another writer. He does not seem to deliberately want readers to experience any truth or inspiration in the process of reading the story. His creative motivation seems to be more entertaining. As long as the reader is a little surprised at the end of the story, his purpose seems to be achieved.
In "The Way We Choose" and "The Way of Destiny," the author shows us what happens if the protagonist makes a different choice. Both novels reveal fatalistic determinism. No matter how the protagonist chooses. Only the process path and manifestation are different. The final fate of the protagonist is similar.
We cannot simulate what has not happened. But because of the infinite possibilities of what has not happened, it is even more unforgettable. Life is made of a series of choices, and we are making choices almost every moment. It is like a binary tree or even a multi-branch tree that extends infinitely downward.
From small to what to eat for dinner, big to choose which university to go to study, choices drive our lives. We continually conceive of choices that have not been made and compare them with our current lives in our minds. Therefore, feel happy or regretful. Even if we only make a two-for-one bifurcation at each choice. There are almost endless possibilities for our entire life.
Compared with the denominator of infinity, the only path we are taking now is a trivial numerator. I think, do other possibilities exist in a parallel universe? In those universes, I made a different choice from me in this universe.
Every time I saw the story "Twenty Years Later", I couldn't help thinking. If I were Jimmy, what would I do? Will I personally arrest Bob? Will they still ask other police officers to do the work? Or just leave straight to avoid meeting? Or is it possible for me to set aside his fact that Bob is a wanted criminal and myself as a police officer and meet him as a childhood friend?
"Witch's Bread" reveals the truth in life that without your knowledge, good intentions may do bad things. So, if you want to help others, it is best to let them know in advance. Otherwise, your self-righteous kindness will instead cause trouble for others. I don’t think that the euphemism encouraged by traditional Chinese is an advantage, it often causes misunderstandings. It's better to be open and honest.
There are many stories about liars in the novel. I think the best way to avoid being deceived is to have reservations about anything others tell yourself. If someone says something and believes in it immediately, it is easy to fall into a scam. Of course, it is almost impossible to verify every message.
But at least we should be cautious about the important news we hear. Don't rush to a conclusion. The identity of the message provider is often linked to the quality of the message. Even your cronies may lie to you for a purpose that is good for you or good for himself, not to mention a general friend or even an enemy?
The person who lets you hear this news often carries some intention of his own. When you believe in it and act according to the news. It was likely the beginning of the trap. Therefore, critical thinking is indispensable. Even if our sources of information come from objective facts that we have observed with our own eyes, our arbitrary conjectures may lead to wrong conclusions and even anger others.
Someone yelled at the family after a sudden power outage and questioned what stupid behavior they had done, which caused the power outage. But she was reluctant to look out the window before she blamed her family members, thinking about whether the entire community had a power outage. Such impulsive and irritable people may also be easily deceived. The more easily a person is affected by negative emotions such as anger, greed, and fear, the more likely he is to be deceived.
16/07/08
20/05/30 -
O Henry is the king of English short story genre. While his works tend to be formulaic, that is one damn golden formula. 'The Gift of Magi' and 'The Last Leaf' are arguably among the best short stories ever written in any language. And O Henry surprisingly manages to keep up a decent threshold of quality across his large collection of short stories. I still consider going back and reading a random picking out of them a very enjoyable pastime.
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I never thought short stories could be this impressive!!!
Like I always say, I'm not a fans of short stories but this collections written by Mr O Henry really blow my mind away
Dituturkan dengan bahasa yang simple namun setiap kisah memiliki twist ending yang mengejutkan! Hampir semua judul di kumcer ini menjadi favoritku❤ -
Best short story collection one could have, or rather needs. The thief was one story that I read in school and fell in love with O Henry, and his writing never disappointed me. I would like to believe he was the one who inspired all twists and turns of plots across Hollywood and Bollywood!
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-full review to come soon-
current notes: o. henry’s stories are pretty entertaining, and i liked their plot twist endings. HOWEVER. there are more than a few racist comments/stereotypes, most likely a product of the author’s time period (late 1800s), but nonetheless turned me off of some stories. -
Нужни са 60 страници и 20 минути, за да усетиш истинската магия на Коледа.
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The collection of O. Henry's best short stories starts off with his most famous one , "The Gift of the Magi", which I have loved for many years. I really did not know what to expect from the rest of the collection, but for the most part they were similarly entertaining. I guess I really like more character and plot development than can be done in a short story so I often felt they were abruptly ended, but then I suppose that is the nature of the genre.
Set in the late 18th and early 19th century, these stories often ended with an abrupt twist of fate like the one where a character was seeningly destined to die but did not or one where someone was about to be apprehended was not. Many of the stories were in NYC as Henry showed a special feeling for that city often portraying the city as very central to the story, but then others were set in the South or the Southwest. It seemed to be a random collection with no real unifying thread. I did, however, enjoy venturing outside of my normal range of comfort reading with this selection. -
O. Henry wasn't what I was expecting. Since the prestigious prize is named for him, I expected him to be the pinnacle of the genre of short stories. I know he's been a bit neglected by modern lit critics as light reading, but I wasn't prepared for how magazine-y these stories are. Not that they lack literary merit I guess... just that there are so many cheap, trick endings you begin to feel once you've read one, you've read them all. Also I don't think they've aged well... O. Henry loves to do dialects and loves pop-cultural in jokes, but both of these are dated and feel a bit cartoonish.
On the other hand, he has moments of real beauty. I happened to like "Cisco Kid" a lot... overall I thought his Westerns were better than his New York stories (mostly found these a little over the top and obnoxious). They were cute, easy to get through, and readable. However not a volume you'll be blown away by all (or even most) of the stories. -
I have long been familiar with "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Last Leaf" so I was excited to find more O'Henry gems in this book. Some of the stories were clever, and some were boring, a few were wise, but overall I was disappointed with this book. Usually when I like an author I wish they had written more, but I guess there is such a thing as being too prolific.
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Tried my best to read this for book club but had a hard time and didn't finish it. O. Henry was a trailblazer in his day, and is considered the grandfather of the short story and the twist ending. Today, I think audiences are much more sophisticated and it's not hard to foresee the twist in most of his stories.
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My favorite airplane companion...not the book you bring to LOOK like you're reading something intelligent...but nice, compact stories with twists to leave you feeling satisfied, even if you're interrupted by the captain's comments a little too often.
