O. Henry •• Some Blog Site

O. Henry

May

2018

I just finished reading a compilation of short stories by a certain author who is listed as O. Henry. No, actually, The Gift of the Magi was not one of the 68 stories in this particular compilation.

I found I liked his writing style better than I had anticipated. I had to break up reading the book over a couple weeks though, because reading too many short stories in one sitting got tedious.

Here are my favorites in this collection (simply called “Selected Stories” and compiled by Guy Davenport, but with O. Henry listed as the author of course):

The Ransom of Mack

Hostages to Momus

The Fool-Killer

The Reformation of Calliope

There were some other good stories too, but those are they that stood out.

He had three main settings that he liked to use: New York City, Texas, and the South. A nice variety. And for some reason he seemed fond of Ann Arbor, Michigan – he mentioned it in more than one story.

He wrote his stories shortly after the time when Little House on the Prairie was set, but his stories seem more modern. Probably because they included more cities and trains and even cars.

Also interesting to note is that O. Henry to the Civil war is like us to the Vietnam war – about 40 years after. But everyone was familiar with it and everyone knew someone who had been in the war as a lot of them were still alive. So he wrote about slaves somewhat. Of course they were now freed, but their roles in his stories reflected how their lives were back then – still mostly servant-type roles. And he used several different terms to describe them, some of which are quaint and others of which would not go over well today.

O. Henry seemed sympathetic to the working-class girls and unfavorable toward the factory owners who paid them so little. And he really did not like national bank examiners.

A number of his stories focused on children finding their long-lost parents or vice-versa, so that got a little formulaic after a while – well of course this lady is going to be his daughter he thought died years ago.

But for the most part the stories were engaging enough that they were interesting to read even though you know how they’ll turn out.

For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

2 Peter 1:16