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Cabbages and Kings
This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!
148 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1904
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About the author
O. Henry
2,914 books1,861 followersSuch volumes as
Cabbages and Kings
(1904) and
The Four Million
(1906) collect short stories, noted for their often surprising endings, of American writer William Sydney Porter, who used the pen name O. Henry.
His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.
Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch.
In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.
He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.
In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.
Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .
In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.
In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed.
Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.
People rewarded other persons financially more. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250; six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. Many stories have been made into films.
His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.
Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch.
In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.
He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.
In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.
Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .
In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.
In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed.
Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.
People rewarded other persons financially more. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250; six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. Many stories have been made into films.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 120 reviews
April 21, 2024
Cabbages and Kings is a collection of short stories so closely connected that this book is often referred to as O Henry’s only novel. All stories are set in the fictional Central American country Anchuria, notorious for unstable and unethical government. (O Henry coined the phrase “banana republic” describing his mythical country — a dubious addition to our political lexicon.) His stories follow a collection of colorful expatriates and natives whose various storylines intersect and occasionally interconnect.
O Henry mixed humor, satire, and sentimentality in Cabbages and Kings in a way that will be familiar to fans of his more famous short stories. Though his storytelling is definitely old fashioned, it is charming and delightful, a must read for O Henry fans, and still recommended for everyone else.
O Henry mixed humor, satire, and sentimentality in Cabbages and Kings in a way that will be familiar to fans of his more famous short stories. Though his storytelling is definitely old fashioned, it is charming and delightful, a must read for O Henry fans, and still recommended for everyone else.
October 2, 2021
Taking its title from a line in "The Walrus and the Carpenter" in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, this is O. Henry's only novel and its main claim to fame is that he coined the phrase "banana republic" in its pages.
It's a novel in the form of linked short stories, like Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kittredge, recounting the schemes of a cast of American ex-pats and local villagers living in Coralio, in the fictional Central American country of Anchuria, orbiting around the attempt by President Miraflores to flee the country with a beautiful companion and a big part of the national treasury. The novel seems to wander, but wraps up pretty well at the end, with O. Henry's signature plot twists.
Anchuria is based on Honduras, where William Sydney Porter, whose pen name was O. Henry, himself fled in an unsuccessful effort to avoid prosecution for embezzlement from an Austin, Texas bank where he had worked. He eventually was convicted and served three years in prison in Columbus, Ohio.
You might be put off by the casual racism and offensive terms used throughout.
It's a novel in the form of linked short stories, like Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kittredge, recounting the schemes of a cast of American ex-pats and local villagers living in Coralio, in the fictional Central American country of Anchuria, orbiting around the attempt by President Miraflores to flee the country with a beautiful companion and a big part of the national treasury. The novel seems to wander, but wraps up pretty well at the end, with O. Henry's signature plot twists.
Anchuria is based on Honduras, where William Sydney Porter, whose pen name was O. Henry, himself fled in an unsuccessful effort to avoid prosecution for embezzlement from an Austin, Texas bank where he had worked. He eventually was convicted and served three years in prison in Columbus, Ohio.
You might be put off by the casual racism and offensive terms used throughout.
May 10, 2008
This is one of my all-time favorite books, one that I re-read often. The language is brilliant and humorous, the setting is tropical, and the characters are memorable. Each chapter could stand alone as a short story, but they string together to form a novel. I read it when I need to remember that life shouldn't be taken quite so seriously. I can't recommend this one enough.
May 4, 2011
A fairly well-knit collection of short stories, each displaying O. Henry's knack for concealing while he puts on a show. The book has a comic portrayal of the tropics, both its volatile political climate and its meteorological one. The book shows its age by opining race-based comments about the inhabitants, but the white characters don't exactly get the buff and polish either.
March 28, 2021
I am a sucker for the short story and O. Henry is a master. I started reading this a few days ago and could not put it down. Some stories are better than others, but that is always the case. What I most enjoyed with this collection was the idioms and old-style slang. A bonus was the unexpected twists and turns as well as the absolute lack of political correctness.
August 5, 2025
ENGLISH: 19 short stories by O.Henry, loose connected to form a single novel, the only one he wrote.
I liked best the plot thread consisting of the three stories Cupid's exile number two, Shoes and Ships, originally published as a single story titled The lotus and the cockleburrs.
ESPAÑOL: 19 relatos cortos de O. Henry, escasamente conectados para formar una novela, la única que escribió.
Me gustó especialmente el hilo argumental compuesto por los tres relatos "El segundo exiliado de Cupido", "Zapatos" y "Barcos", publicados originalmente como un solo relato titulado "El loto y los abrojos".
I liked best the plot thread consisting of the three stories Cupid's exile number two, Shoes and Ships, originally published as a single story titled The lotus and the cockleburrs.
ESPAÑOL: 19 relatos cortos de O. Henry, escasamente conectados para formar una novela, la única que escribió.
Me gustó especialmente el hilo argumental compuesto por los tres relatos "El segundo exiliado de Cupido", "Zapatos" y "Barcos", publicados originalmente como un solo relato titulado "El loto y los abrojos".
March 24, 2014
When I started with this collection of inter-connected short stories, I was not very impressed. I could not find the charm and attraction that I found in his other famous short stories like the very well known 'The Gift of the Magi'. But slowly and surely, this collection slipped a tight grip around me. I started enjoying his wit and got adjusted to the archaic English. Although it did slow me down a lot, because I cannot proceed without knowing the meaning :) the archaic English as well as the construction of the dialogues themselves is a major part of the narrative. The more I read, the more convinced I became of O Henry's brilliance as a writer. I cannot believe that this is his first work of writing. It is just too good!
The collection has been structured beautifully and it builds towards a worthy ending. Even after the book has ended, you are left with the vivid knowledge of the imaginary Caribbean island nation of Anchuria. You start feeling at home in Coralio, the town where most of the action unfolds and you become possessive about all those well fleshed-out characters.
Apparently, this collection is considered to contain some of O Henry's best work which also happens to be his least known! So I would recommend this highly to all O Henry fans. And I would suggest to be patient with it, and give it time...
The collection has been structured beautifully and it builds towards a worthy ending. Even after the book has ended, you are left with the vivid knowledge of the imaginary Caribbean island nation of Anchuria. You start feeling at home in Coralio, the town where most of the action unfolds and you become possessive about all those well fleshed-out characters.
Apparently, this collection is considered to contain some of O Henry's best work which also happens to be his least known! So I would recommend this highly to all O Henry fans. And I would suggest to be patient with it, and give it time...
December 31, 2015
A collection of stories set in a fictional "banana republic" of Anchuria, likely modeled after Honduras, where the author, O. Henry, spent some time evading the law after embezzlement and tax evasion charges. The characters are largely American businessmen and government officials, who are all to happy to pull fast cons and loaf about in hammocks, pining for their lost loves and failed dealings in the States. There is humor, primarily slapstick style, in the vaudevillian antics of the expats. The reader can easily glean O. Henry's political leanings and prevalent opinions regarding American expansionism / manifest destiny, race, and corporate business in the Caribbean/Central America.
December 3, 2017
ვაპირებდი დამეწერა: "მოთხრობები ჯობია" - მეთქი, მაგრამ ისე ლამაზად აეწყო პაზლი, რომ ახლა მხოლოდ იმას ვწერ, თუ რის დაწერას ვაპირებდი.
October 10, 2020
My favorite stories were "The Shamrock and the Palm", "Shoes", "Ships", and "Masters of Arts".
Some funny quotes:
“He was, in reality, a categorical idealist who strove to anamorphosize the dull verities of life by means of brandy and rum”
"President Losada ordered from a French sculptor a marble group including himself with Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and one or two others whom he deemed worthy of the honour"
"You tear up ten thousand dollars like an old rag because the way you've spread on five dollars' worth of paint hurts your conscience. Next time I pick a side-partner in a scheme the man has to go before a notary and swear he never even heard the word 'ideal' mentioned."
"I was awakened by an orange that dropped from a tree upon my nose; and I lay there for a while cursing Sir Isaac Newton, or whoever it was that invented gravitation, for not confining his theory to apples."
Some funny quotes:
“He was, in reality, a categorical idealist who strove to anamorphosize the dull verities of life by means of brandy and rum”
"President Losada ordered from a French sculptor a marble group including himself with Napoleon, Alexander the Great, and one or two others whom he deemed worthy of the honour"
"You tear up ten thousand dollars like an old rag because the way you've spread on five dollars' worth of paint hurts your conscience. Next time I pick a side-partner in a scheme the man has to go before a notary and swear he never even heard the word 'ideal' mentioned."
"I was awakened by an orange that dropped from a tree upon my nose; and I lay there for a while cursing Sir Isaac Newton, or whoever it was that invented gravitation, for not confining his theory to apples."
July 5, 2019
This is definitely not O. Henry at his best. His strength is with the individual short story - this book is a collection of short stories which is supposed to have a common thread. I began to enjoy the stories more when I stopped trying to fit them all together and read them simply as short stories, separate and distinct from one another. The resolution of the overarching story was, I admit, quite funny.
April 25, 2019
Disgusting vile racist shit.
I vaguely recall reading O. Henry stories in high school and enjoying them.
But this shit?
Ugh
Think of every single xenophobic racist stereotype and slur and derogatory name one might use to think of/describe American Indians & black people, Italians, Irish, and South Americans... and each one was used in this wretched book... multiple times!
I vaguely recall reading O. Henry stories in high school and enjoying them.
But this shit?
Ugh
Think of every single xenophobic racist stereotype and slur and derogatory name one might use to think of/describe American Indians & black people, Italians, Irish, and South Americans... and each one was used in this wretched book... multiple times!
March 8, 2017
არ ვაპირებდი ამ წიგნის წაკითხვას, ბოლოსკენ შემოვიტოვე, მეზარებოდა დაწყება :D საწინააღმდეგო აღმოჩნდა.
გარემო - ტროპიკული
პერსონაჟები - სამახსოვრო
თითოეული თავი - ცალკე ისტორია, რომლებიც საბოლოოდ კარგ ნაწარმოებს ქმნიან.
4/5
გარემო - ტროპიკული
პერსონაჟები - სამახსოვრო
თითოეული თავი - ცალკე ისტორია, რომლებიც საბოლოოდ კარგ ნაწარმოებს ქმნიან.
4/5
April 7, 2023
Humorous, but in a style that was a little difficult for me to follow or appreciate fully.
August 7, 2015
This has got to be among the best reads describing the odd friendship between colonialism and business interests, staged on the backdrop of Latin America, with the original banana republic of Anchuria. I landed up reading this after I learnt that this is where the term banana republic originated from. A free copy on Project Gutenberg and I could not stop reading this book once I started.
In fact, while Sidney Porter (aka O.Henry) wrote this mainly about the fruit companies in USA (think of Dole fresh fruit products) who were putting up puppet governments in Latin America to be able to grow these fruits, unrestricted by regulation, one can further extend the metaphor to other such enterprises world over. And that is where the true joy of reading this book comes in.
Each chapter tells you one part of the story - of a country called Anchuria, its dictator, and how he is replaced by another one "chosen by his people" in a "civic uprising" orchestrated by merchants funding this nationalist. All seen from the porch of a few foreign merchants, including the author (Sidney Porter wrote this while he was trying to escape charges of embezzlement from the USA - and this is what makes O.Henry himself such a colourful character)
Needless to say, I savoured every bit of this book (it is a rather short novella - with hardly 100 pages - but I DO recommend reading it in print form, which is what I also did - rather than online). The book just got even more interesting as I started to extrapolate what happened in Anchuria with what happened in Honduras (Dole fruit), India (The East India company with puppet kings such as the toddler king of Mysore who was placed on the throne when Tipu Sultan was defeated in the bttle of Sri Rangapatnam in 1799. The toddler Wodeyar king of Mysore was "guided" in his duties by the British through a caretaker Scottish man), Iran (The unpopular Shah overnments of UK and USA and the whose loyalties lay with them rather than his own subjects), and umpteen current day dictators / presidents of African countries from Liberia to Zimbabwe.
This is one book that needs to be slowly savoured, rather than read in a jiffy, and I took umpteen breaks between each few pages, reflecting on what Porter had seen,0wrote and how it was relevant today.
I think this is one reason why this book will probably be read at least for a 100 more years - for its real subject is core human nature (and scheming, gullibility and greed), something which does not change that drastically over time. It already is more than a century sicne O.Hency wrote this book in 1904.
In fact, while Sidney Porter (aka O.Henry) wrote this mainly about the fruit companies in USA (think of Dole fresh fruit products) who were putting up puppet governments in Latin America to be able to grow these fruits, unrestricted by regulation, one can further extend the metaphor to other such enterprises world over. And that is where the true joy of reading this book comes in.
Each chapter tells you one part of the story - of a country called Anchuria, its dictator, and how he is replaced by another one "chosen by his people" in a "civic uprising" orchestrated by merchants funding this nationalist. All seen from the porch of a few foreign merchants, including the author (Sidney Porter wrote this while he was trying to escape charges of embezzlement from the USA - and this is what makes O.Henry himself such a colourful character)
Needless to say, I savoured every bit of this book (it is a rather short novella - with hardly 100 pages - but I DO recommend reading it in print form, which is what I also did - rather than online). The book just got even more interesting as I started to extrapolate what happened in Anchuria with what happened in Honduras (Dole fruit), India (The East India company with puppet kings such as the toddler king of Mysore who was placed on the throne when Tipu Sultan was defeated in the bttle of Sri Rangapatnam in 1799. The toddler Wodeyar king of Mysore was "guided" in his duties by the British through a caretaker Scottish man), Iran (The unpopular Shah overnments of UK and USA and the whose loyalties lay with them rather than his own subjects), and umpteen current day dictators / presidents of African countries from Liberia to Zimbabwe.
This is one book that needs to be slowly savoured, rather than read in a jiffy, and I took umpteen breaks between each few pages, reflecting on what Porter had seen,0wrote and how it was relevant today.
I think this is one reason why this book will probably be read at least for a 100 more years - for its real subject is core human nature (and scheming, gullibility and greed), something which does not change that drastically over time. It already is more than a century sicne O.Hency wrote this book in 1904.
October 13, 2020
Cabbages and Kings
تعرفت على أو. هنري قبل أعوام بعيدة، كانت قصصه تنشر في الصحف كجزء من مشروع ترجمي صغير، تقدم فيه قصص من بلدان ومؤلفين شتى، نسيت لاحقاً أسماء الكثير من القصصيين الذين عرفنا بهم المشروع ولكن بقي أو. هنري لا ينسى، لاحقاً - وكانت إنجليزيتي كسيحة وقتها – حصلت على مجموعة أفضل مئة قصة كتبها هنري ووضعتها في مكان بارز من مكتبتي لقراءتها عندما تتحسن لغتي وتخرج من إسار المقالات الصغيرة، مرت الأعوام وكثرت العناوين وصرت اقرأ أفضل وأكثر، وبقي مجلد المئة قصة مؤجلاً، يتنقل معي من منزل إلى آخر ومن مكتبة صغيرة إلى أخرى أكبر، وعندما قررت أنه حان الوقت للقليل من أو. هنري خطرت لي فكرة جعلت انتظار تلك المئة بلا طائل، كانت الفكرة هي لمَ الاكتفاء بمئة قصة من هذا العبقري الممتع؟ لمَ لا اقرأ أعماله الكاملة، وهكذا تركت المجلد في رقدته الطويلة وحصلت على الأعمال الكاملة على كندل بما يعادل قيمة كوب قهوة صغير، وحتى أضمن أن المجلد الحزين سيحظى بنهاية لائقة قمت بمقارنة سريعة لأتأكد أن كل القصص المئة موجودة في الأعمال الكاملة وأنني لم أتعرض لإحدى ألاعيب دور النشر والتي تبيعك عملاً منقوصاً بمزاعم كاملة.
تحوي الأعمال الكاملة كل مجموعات هنري القصصية، مرتبة حسب تاريخ الصدور، وهذه المجموعة الجميلة (ملفوف وملوك) والتي صدرت سنة 1904 م لم ينشر أياً منها ضمن مجلد المئة قصة، ربما لأن هذه المجموعة مترابطة مكانياً وموضوعياً، فأحداث القصص تدور في مدينة ساحلية تدعى كورالايو، تقع هذه المدينة في بلد تخيلي في أمريكا الوسطى، رؤساء هاربين وتجار وثوريين وعشاق حالمين، تضم هذه المجموعة قصصاً ممتعة، ذكية وساخرة، تعيد بعض هذه القصص النظر في قصص أخرى وتنير بعض معانيها أو أحداثها. كانت هذه المجموعة الأولى وأعكف الآن على قراءة المجموعة الثانية من قصص أو. هنري وسأستمر حتى الفراغ من كل المجموعات، فما قرأته في هذه المجموعة يحرض على المزيد.
March 15, 2013
This is by far my favorite short story collection by O. Henry. The tales take place in the same locale, a fictitious banana republic of the American tropics. There is an over-arcing plot that runs through the stories, concerning the ruling potentate's abdication and sudden departure with the nation's treasury funds, creating a mystery that isn't solved until the final vignette. Along the way, we meet an amusing cast of characters, each one with his own colorful background. The best part of the book, though, is O. Henry's brilliant use of the English language.
May 13, 2025
це - іронія і стьоб 80го левела. А ще - коротка узагальнена історія центральноамериканських "бананових республік", де американські торговці бананами організовували революції, змінювали уряди та створювали нові держави лише для того, щоб мати змогу закуповувати фрукти за нижчими цінами, не платити податків і отримувати інші преференції. Я дізнався, що О.Генрі трохи пожив у Центральній Америці, так що твір міг бути списаним з його особистого досвіду.
Про королів і про капусту тут інформації нема, а назва (з епіграфом) робить відсилку до Моржа з "Аліси в Країні див". Морж теж не розповів того, про що обіцяв, тому цим автор також жартує над читачами і стібеться з себе як з автора.
Ось такий вигляд мав стендап на початку 20-го століття.🙂
Про королів і про капусту тут інформації нема, а назва (з епіграфом) робить відсилку до Моржа з "Аліси в Країні див". Морж теж не розповів того, про що обіцяв, тому цим автор також жартує над читачами і стібеться з себе як з автора.
Ось такий вигляд мав стендап на початку 20-го століття.🙂
December 27, 2020
Love love love this!!! This is a must read!everyone must read this! I read his gift of magi and found it good and wanted to read more of his writings.. i got to know this is his famous work and read it. Guess what? I totally fell in love with his writing after reading this..Oh what a fine write this is..language is complex but when you get to understand it you'll totally love it. The witty and sarcastic way of language have me. I still can't believe it is his first book..ohh such a fine write..definitely gonna reread this and I cannot reccomend this more enough..just read it! You'll love it!
January 5, 2024
წიგნს იმთავითვე ეტყობა, რომ მწერალი მოთხრობების ოსტატია. შესანიშნავად აქვს აწყობილი ჭრელი, ტროპიკული მძივი პატარა, საოცარი ამბებით, დასამახსოვრებელი პერსონაჟებით... ან იქნებ ბანანების აცმა? ამაოდ ხომ არ დაამკვიდრა ტერმინი "ბანანის რესპუბლიკა" რევოლუციების ქარცეცხლში გახვეული ანჩურიის აღწერით, რომელსაც ხან "მოხერხებული" უცხოელები ძარცვავენ (ადგილობრივებს ესეც ეზარებათ), ხან ხელისუფალნი, ხან კი - სანაოსნო კომპანია...
June 26, 2023
Несколько связанных между собой историй происходящих в коротком городе банановой республики Анчурия, среди американцев прживающих или посещающих город. Когда весь этот регион был задним двором Дяди Сэра. Вечные вопросы здесь не обсуждаются , это просто увлекательные истории.
March 18, 2025
This was O’Henry I hadn’t known before.
The language and storytelling are incredible.
Even though the novel is meant as a vaudeville and means no harm, there are a lot of things, which nowadays sounds extremely offensive.
It’s an enjoyable but somewhat confusing reading experience.
The language and storytelling are incredible.
Even though the novel is meant as a vaudeville and means no harm, there are a lot of things, which nowadays sounds extremely offensive.
It’s an enjoyable but somewhat confusing reading experience.
November 23, 2025
O’ Henry Revisited
’Is O. Henry still relevant today?’ It’s a question that three friends—I the youngest by nearly two decades, they the seasoned veterans—decided to test during the strange stillness of Covid. On May 1st, 2021, we set ourselves a rather reckless mission: to reread every word O. Henry ever wrote, slowly and deliberately, over the course of a year. And we did. What follows are the reflections and reviews born from that long, unusual experiment—an O. Henry revisited, re-examined, and re-imagined for a modern age.
The first thing that hits you when you return to ‘Cabbages and Kings’ in the 2020–21 lockdown era is how wildly, almost cheekily, contemporary it feels—like the past is smuggling you confidential documents through a crack in time.
This wasn’t just O. Henry’s first book; it was his experiment with narrative architecture, a kind of literary Rube Goldberg machine where characters wander in and out of each other’s stories, each carrying a fragment of a joke, a motive, a heartbreak, a political blunder, or a secret that refuses to stay still.
It is a novel only in the sense that a mosaic is a single image: a hundred tiny pieces that only make sense when you step back far enough to see the shape they form.
The setting—Ah, Anchuria. On the surface, it’s a fictional Central American republic with a name that sounds like something dreamed up by a hungover geography teacher. But once you step inside it, the place comes alive with a sharpness that borders on prophetic. If you read it during Covid, as the world seemed to shift beneath your feet every few days, Anchuria’s blend of political absurdity, bureaucratic improvisation, and comic instability feels terrifyingly recognizable.
The country hums with the anxious rhythm of people who have grown accustomed to unpredictability: ministers who can’t plan more than two days ahead, citizens who barter gossip like currency, exiles hovering at the edge of America like moths near a porch light, and con men who thrive because the line between “official government action” and “personal hustle” is drawn in chalk on a dusty street.
And this is what O. Henry understood before most American writers dared: politics and comedy are natural siblings. They share DNA.
They breathe the same absurd air. Power structures survive not because they’re efficient, but because people are inventive in the ways they navigate incompetence. What’s astonishing is how gently he applies this critique. Instead of the anger or cynicism that colours modern political satire, O. Henry approaches his banana republic with something closer to affectionate exasperation—the same tone one uses when watching a toddler insist that gravity is optional.
The cast is enormous, and yet every single character feels like someone you’ve met in your own life—or, more worryingly, someone you’ve blocked on WhatsApp. They drift through port towns, embassies, cafés, verandas, bars, and alleyways, carrying stories on their backs like overstuffed sacks.
A wandering troubadour spins tales that don’t quite add up, diplomats scramble to look important while knowing nothing, accidental revolutionaries stumble into heroism they never asked for, and Americans—so many Americans—float through Anchuria with the calm certainty of people who believe the universe must be run according to their hometown’s municipal bylaws.
The magic is that O. Henry never mocks them. He lets them live. He lets them be foolish, earnest, idealistic, conniving, hopeful, arrogant, and lost. And because he gives them that freedom, their stories land with surprising emotional force. Even the most comic figure can suddenly glow with humanity if you tilt your head at the right angle.
Covid reading rewires your sensitivity to that humanity. After months of isolation, every tiny sliver of human absurdity takes on the weight of a revelation. A minor anecdote about a man trying to outrun a rumour becomes a metaphor for the way fear spread across continents in 2020.
A moment of miscommunication between two bureaucrats feels eerily like the early pandemic government briefings where no one seemed to know who was in charge of what. And the stories of exile—the quiet ache of people who can’t go home, or don’t know what awaits them when they do—sting a little more fiercely because lockdowns taught us how geography can suddenly become a trap.
One of the uncanny pleasures of the book is its structure. The stories loop into each other like the threads of a tapestry. Characters leave and return, conversations echo across chapters, and small details become large mechanisms later on. But O. Henry does not build this with the meticulousness of a modernist. He builds it like a man juggling flaming torches just to see if he can make the crowd gasp. And somehow—miraculously—it all ties together.
This looping structure feels incredibly postmodern when read now. It’s almost Calvino-like in the way narratives peek into each other’s windows. It’s almost Pynchon-esque in the way conspiracies bloom from coincidences. But instead of paranoia or existential dread, O. Henry gives us mischief. He gives us flawed humans stumbling into meaning.
Covid-era readers craving some sense of interconnectedness—some hint that our own scattered narratives might eventually coalesce into coherence—find comfort in this chaotic narrative ecosystem. It’s fiction as a social network, long before the algorithms were born.
The language carries O. Henry’s signature sparkle: playful, swift, and sly, with sentences that turn corners like a lizard darting between sunlit stones. But during lockdown, that humour hits differently. It becomes a salve. When the real world was a spreadsheet of infection graphs, O. Henry’s jokes—light, sharp, and mischievously observant—felt like reminders that wit is one of the last human freedoms. There’s something medicinal about the way he wields irony. It’s never bitter, never cruel. It’s a way of saying, “Look how ridiculous we are, and yet how beautiful.”
And the romance—oh, the romance. Unexpected, fragile, and always slightly off-kilter. O. Henry never writes love with grand gestures or sweeping declarations. His romantic threads often start as misunderstandings, detours, and collisions of personality. But there is warmth in that awkwardness, a sense that love thrives not in heroic settings but in the odd corners of life—behind a marketplace, in a dusty courtyard, in a whispered joke shared during a tense political moment. Covid-heightened emotional vulnerabilities make these small intimacies feel even more luminous.
Yet beneath the comedy and romance is a quiet thread of exile, displacement, and longing. Many of the book’s characters feel unmoored—geographically, emotionally, and morally. They are floating between worlds, waiting for letters that don’t arrive, dependents of chance rather than agency. Covid intensified this sensation globally, making it impossible not to read these characters as kindred spirits in their uncertainty.
We too were suspended in midair, expecting news every day that would shift the ground. ‘Cabbages and Kings’ becomes, unexpectedly, a pandemic allegory: a portrait of people attempting to live meaningful lives while history keeps tripping over its shoelaces.
What stands out most in the Covid reread is how O. Henry handles power. The people who wield it are often absurd, bumbling, or dangerously confident in their own limited competence. But the people who live under that power are resilient, clever, adaptable, and occasionally brilliant in the way they manipulate the chaos to survive.
The book becomes a study in the absurdity of leadership and the ingenuity of ordinary people. It feels—let’s just say it—like a documentary of 2020 with better punchlines.
The stories grow into each other like vines. Each new chapter makes you re-evaluate what came before, and Covid-trained brains, used to scrolling through contradictory news reports and piecing meaning from fragments, are especially attuned to this kind of narrative patterning. You start to delight in the small crossovers: a passing mention, a familiar hat, a rumour that reveals its origin two chapters later.
The pleasure of reading becomes archaeological. You brush dust off old lines and discover hidden bones underneath.
And then there is the book’s relationship with chance. Everything in Anchuria is determined not by reason but by timing, coincidence, overheard conversations, misplaced letters, and people accidentally standing in the wrong place at the wrong hour. Fate seems less like a cosmic judge and more like a drunk uncle steering events with chaotic enthusiasm.
But this too feels strangely comforting after the pandemic, which trained us to understand that history is often driven by randomness: one mutation, one handshake, one miscommunication. O. Henry’s universe says: yes, the world is absurd, but humans—messy, hopeful humans—find ways to adapt.
By the time you reach the final pages, you realise the entire book has been one long joke about the nature of narrative itself. Stories tangle, characters lie, fate improvises, and the reader is pulled along with a sense of delighted suspicion. Nothing resolves neatly, but everything resolves satisfyingly. It’s that rare narrative trick: closure without confinement.
Reading ‘Cabbages and Kings’ today feels like reading the world in miniature: chaotic, comic, tender, corrupt, hopeful, unpredictable, and resilient. It’s a book that forecasts the 21st century while pretending to be nothing more than an amusing tangle of tropical escapades.
It laughs at power, elevates human absurdity, cherishes connection, and winks at you across a hundred years of history.
It’s the perfect pandemic reread because it reminds you that uncertainty is not new, absurdity is not fatal, humans have always been reckless and lovable, and the world—no matter how tangled—keeps spinning stories out of its contradictions.
Most recommended.
’Is O. Henry still relevant today?’ It’s a question that three friends—I the youngest by nearly two decades, they the seasoned veterans—decided to test during the strange stillness of Covid. On May 1st, 2021, we set ourselves a rather reckless mission: to reread every word O. Henry ever wrote, slowly and deliberately, over the course of a year. And we did. What follows are the reflections and reviews born from that long, unusual experiment—an O. Henry revisited, re-examined, and re-imagined for a modern age.
The first thing that hits you when you return to ‘Cabbages and Kings’ in the 2020–21 lockdown era is how wildly, almost cheekily, contemporary it feels—like the past is smuggling you confidential documents through a crack in time.
This wasn’t just O. Henry’s first book; it was his experiment with narrative architecture, a kind of literary Rube Goldberg machine where characters wander in and out of each other’s stories, each carrying a fragment of a joke, a motive, a heartbreak, a political blunder, or a secret that refuses to stay still.
It is a novel only in the sense that a mosaic is a single image: a hundred tiny pieces that only make sense when you step back far enough to see the shape they form.
The setting—Ah, Anchuria. On the surface, it’s a fictional Central American republic with a name that sounds like something dreamed up by a hungover geography teacher. But once you step inside it, the place comes alive with a sharpness that borders on prophetic. If you read it during Covid, as the world seemed to shift beneath your feet every few days, Anchuria’s blend of political absurdity, bureaucratic improvisation, and comic instability feels terrifyingly recognizable.
The country hums with the anxious rhythm of people who have grown accustomed to unpredictability: ministers who can’t plan more than two days ahead, citizens who barter gossip like currency, exiles hovering at the edge of America like moths near a porch light, and con men who thrive because the line between “official government action” and “personal hustle” is drawn in chalk on a dusty street.
And this is what O. Henry understood before most American writers dared: politics and comedy are natural siblings. They share DNA.
They breathe the same absurd air. Power structures survive not because they’re efficient, but because people are inventive in the ways they navigate incompetence. What’s astonishing is how gently he applies this critique. Instead of the anger or cynicism that colours modern political satire, O. Henry approaches his banana republic with something closer to affectionate exasperation—the same tone one uses when watching a toddler insist that gravity is optional.
The cast is enormous, and yet every single character feels like someone you’ve met in your own life—or, more worryingly, someone you’ve blocked on WhatsApp. They drift through port towns, embassies, cafés, verandas, bars, and alleyways, carrying stories on their backs like overstuffed sacks.
A wandering troubadour spins tales that don’t quite add up, diplomats scramble to look important while knowing nothing, accidental revolutionaries stumble into heroism they never asked for, and Americans—so many Americans—float through Anchuria with the calm certainty of people who believe the universe must be run according to their hometown’s municipal bylaws.
The magic is that O. Henry never mocks them. He lets them live. He lets them be foolish, earnest, idealistic, conniving, hopeful, arrogant, and lost. And because he gives them that freedom, their stories land with surprising emotional force. Even the most comic figure can suddenly glow with humanity if you tilt your head at the right angle.
Covid reading rewires your sensitivity to that humanity. After months of isolation, every tiny sliver of human absurdity takes on the weight of a revelation. A minor anecdote about a man trying to outrun a rumour becomes a metaphor for the way fear spread across continents in 2020.
A moment of miscommunication between two bureaucrats feels eerily like the early pandemic government briefings where no one seemed to know who was in charge of what. And the stories of exile—the quiet ache of people who can’t go home, or don’t know what awaits them when they do—sting a little more fiercely because lockdowns taught us how geography can suddenly become a trap.
One of the uncanny pleasures of the book is its structure. The stories loop into each other like the threads of a tapestry. Characters leave and return, conversations echo across chapters, and small details become large mechanisms later on. But O. Henry does not build this with the meticulousness of a modernist. He builds it like a man juggling flaming torches just to see if he can make the crowd gasp. And somehow—miraculously—it all ties together.
This looping structure feels incredibly postmodern when read now. It’s almost Calvino-like in the way narratives peek into each other’s windows. It’s almost Pynchon-esque in the way conspiracies bloom from coincidences. But instead of paranoia or existential dread, O. Henry gives us mischief. He gives us flawed humans stumbling into meaning.
Covid-era readers craving some sense of interconnectedness—some hint that our own scattered narratives might eventually coalesce into coherence—find comfort in this chaotic narrative ecosystem. It’s fiction as a social network, long before the algorithms were born.
The language carries O. Henry’s signature sparkle: playful, swift, and sly, with sentences that turn corners like a lizard darting between sunlit stones. But during lockdown, that humour hits differently. It becomes a salve. When the real world was a spreadsheet of infection graphs, O. Henry’s jokes—light, sharp, and mischievously observant—felt like reminders that wit is one of the last human freedoms. There’s something medicinal about the way he wields irony. It’s never bitter, never cruel. It’s a way of saying, “Look how ridiculous we are, and yet how beautiful.”
And the romance—oh, the romance. Unexpected, fragile, and always slightly off-kilter. O. Henry never writes love with grand gestures or sweeping declarations. His romantic threads often start as misunderstandings, detours, and collisions of personality. But there is warmth in that awkwardness, a sense that love thrives not in heroic settings but in the odd corners of life—behind a marketplace, in a dusty courtyard, in a whispered joke shared during a tense political moment. Covid-heightened emotional vulnerabilities make these small intimacies feel even more luminous.
Yet beneath the comedy and romance is a quiet thread of exile, displacement, and longing. Many of the book’s characters feel unmoored—geographically, emotionally, and morally. They are floating between worlds, waiting for letters that don’t arrive, dependents of chance rather than agency. Covid intensified this sensation globally, making it impossible not to read these characters as kindred spirits in their uncertainty.
We too were suspended in midair, expecting news every day that would shift the ground. ‘Cabbages and Kings’ becomes, unexpectedly, a pandemic allegory: a portrait of people attempting to live meaningful lives while history keeps tripping over its shoelaces.
What stands out most in the Covid reread is how O. Henry handles power. The people who wield it are often absurd, bumbling, or dangerously confident in their own limited competence. But the people who live under that power are resilient, clever, adaptable, and occasionally brilliant in the way they manipulate the chaos to survive.
The book becomes a study in the absurdity of leadership and the ingenuity of ordinary people. It feels—let’s just say it—like a documentary of 2020 with better punchlines.
The stories grow into each other like vines. Each new chapter makes you re-evaluate what came before, and Covid-trained brains, used to scrolling through contradictory news reports and piecing meaning from fragments, are especially attuned to this kind of narrative patterning. You start to delight in the small crossovers: a passing mention, a familiar hat, a rumour that reveals its origin two chapters later.
The pleasure of reading becomes archaeological. You brush dust off old lines and discover hidden bones underneath.
And then there is the book’s relationship with chance. Everything in Anchuria is determined not by reason but by timing, coincidence, overheard conversations, misplaced letters, and people accidentally standing in the wrong place at the wrong hour. Fate seems less like a cosmic judge and more like a drunk uncle steering events with chaotic enthusiasm.
But this too feels strangely comforting after the pandemic, which trained us to understand that history is often driven by randomness: one mutation, one handshake, one miscommunication. O. Henry’s universe says: yes, the world is absurd, but humans—messy, hopeful humans—find ways to adapt.
By the time you reach the final pages, you realise the entire book has been one long joke about the nature of narrative itself. Stories tangle, characters lie, fate improvises, and the reader is pulled along with a sense of delighted suspicion. Nothing resolves neatly, but everything resolves satisfyingly. It’s that rare narrative trick: closure without confinement.
Reading ‘Cabbages and Kings’ today feels like reading the world in miniature: chaotic, comic, tender, corrupt, hopeful, unpredictable, and resilient. It’s a book that forecasts the 21st century while pretending to be nothing more than an amusing tangle of tropical escapades.
It laughs at power, elevates human absurdity, cherishes connection, and winks at you across a hundred years of history.
It’s the perfect pandemic reread because it reminds you that uncertainty is not new, absurdity is not fatal, humans have always been reckless and lovable, and the world—no matter how tangled—keeps spinning stories out of its contradictions.
Most recommended.
April 28, 2023
Rating - 6.4
Expected more in overall enjoyment & expected a lot more description about Banana Republics (mostly danced around the edges w only one chapter connecting; Most of the characters are forgettable
One of those books where you read a chapter a night & sum up w a 'that was decent' however nothing that made you want to read a second chapter; Maybe more stories about the working class?
Expected more in overall enjoyment & expected a lot more description about Banana Republics (mostly danced around the edges w only one chapter connecting; Most of the characters are forgettable
One of those books where you read a chapter a night & sum up w a 'that was decent' however nothing that made you want to read a second chapter; Maybe more stories about the working class?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2022
This might be one that I'll have to revisit with a future reread, but for now I've done the best I could to wrangle my takeaway thoughts into a haiku:
"Like a world apart.
The fleeing, seeking, and scammed
Have that one promise."
"Like a world apart.
The fleeing, seeking, and scammed
Have that one promise."
April 20, 2011
This was an interesting collection of stories. The setting is the same throughout-a small coastal town in South America- with the same cast of characters-expatriates who have found themselves living there. All the characters are disreputable, on-the-make shysters with the slang usually found in old mobster movies. This is contrasted with the epic, high-flown language of the narration, which adds an extra layer of plain ridiculousness and sly humor. I enjoyed reading this, but, except for a few really fine passages, I don't feel I'm taking anything lasting out of the experience.
January 19, 2011
A collection of stories with a common thread and an intriguing mystery at its outset. I thought the twist of the mystery trite although the clues were there and the pieces fit. But learning the resolution is nothing compared to O'Henry's brilliant storytelling. Will definitely read more O'Henry works.
January 1, 2015
I love O. Henry. He had a unique grammar and diction. This book is a chain a short stories that could just as easily be called a novel. But I think the contrivances at the end, which are meant to tie the thing together, rather undermine the charm of the book.
Still, this is well worth reading. If for no other reason, it gives you a taste of what O'Henry's exile in Latin America was like.
Still, this is well worth reading. If for no other reason, it gives you a taste of what O'Henry's exile in Latin America was like.
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