What do you think?
Rate this book
101 Stories
William Sidney Porter, better known by his pen name, O. Henry, was one of the world’s great storytellers, a master of cunning plots that unfold with propulsive narrative force and a gifted humorist who ranks among the best in our literature. Though he is most famous today for the beloved tale “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry’s palette of moods and methods was broad, as expansive as his exuberant imagination. This Library of America volume offers a fresh look at his singular literary genius.
Selected and expertly annotated by journalist and biographer Ben Yagoda, here are 101 of O. Henry’s short stories, including such enduringly popular tales as “The Ransom of Red Chief,” in which a ten-year-old boy proves to be more than a match for his bungling kidnappers, and “The Cop and the Anthem,” about a down-on-his-luck hobo desperately trying to get arrested so he can spend the winter in a warm cell.
Among other highlights are several of his Honduras stories, drawn from Porter’s experiences in Central America while on the run from the law; adventures of the sardonic embezzler Jeff Peters and his scam-artist colleagues; and tales of the Texas range like “The Caballero’s Way,” which introduces the murderous desperado the Cisco Kid.
At the heart of the collection are Porter’s vivid New York stories. O. Henry was the original wanderer in the city (“It’ll be a great place if they ever finish it”), capturing in his stories the lives of the many and various people who throng its streets: shop girls, tycoons, immigrants, cops, criminals, con-men, and tourists. “When I first came to New York,” he recalled, “I spent a great deal of time knocking about around the streets. I did things I wouldn’t think of doing now.” He turned those experiences and observations into such gems as “Twenty Years Later” and “The Last Leaf.” Many of these stories feature O. Henry’s signature twist endings, and they reveal all the serendipity of urban life with warmth and wit.
Rounding out the volume are O. Henry’s final, posthumously published stories, “Let Me Feel Your Pulse,” “The Snow Man,” and “The Dream,” and, as a special feature, three early stories published for the first time. Here is an O. Henry for the twenty-first century, a fully annotated edition that showcases the extraordinary range of a great American writer.
Selected and expertly annotated by journalist and biographer Ben Yagoda, here are 101 of O. Henry’s short stories, including such enduringly popular tales as “The Ransom of Red Chief,” in which a ten-year-old boy proves to be more than a match for his bungling kidnappers, and “The Cop and the Anthem,” about a down-on-his-luck hobo desperately trying to get arrested so he can spend the winter in a warm cell.
Among other highlights are several of his Honduras stories, drawn from Porter’s experiences in Central America while on the run from the law; adventures of the sardonic embezzler Jeff Peters and his scam-artist colleagues; and tales of the Texas range like “The Caballero’s Way,” which introduces the murderous desperado the Cisco Kid.
At the heart of the collection are Porter’s vivid New York stories. O. Henry was the original wanderer in the city (“It’ll be a great place if they ever finish it”), capturing in his stories the lives of the many and various people who throng its streets: shop girls, tycoons, immigrants, cops, criminals, con-men, and tourists. “When I first came to New York,” he recalled, “I spent a great deal of time knocking about around the streets. I did things I wouldn’t think of doing now.” He turned those experiences and observations into such gems as “Twenty Years Later” and “The Last Leaf.” Many of these stories feature O. Henry’s signature twist endings, and they reveal all the serendipity of urban life with warmth and wit.
Rounding out the volume are O. Henry’s final, posthumously published stories, “Let Me Feel Your Pulse,” “The Snow Man,” and “The Dream,” and, as a special feature, three early stories published for the first time. Here is an O. Henry for the twenty-first century, a fully annotated edition that showcases the extraordinary range of a great American writer.
750 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
55 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
O. Henry
2,910 books1,865 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 31, 2025
What a feat to accomplish! Never have I read such a large short story collection. Many of the stories felt off-color and did not age the best, but O. Henry definitely perfected the twist ending.
No story came anywhere close to the impact “The Last Leaf” had on me. I would not recommend this collection unless you’re an O. Henry stan, but I would recommend “The Last Leaf” to everyone. Friendship is a beautiful thing. 💛🍃
No story came anywhere close to the impact “The Last Leaf” had on me. I would not recommend this collection unless you’re an O. Henry stan, but I would recommend “The Last Leaf” to everyone. Friendship is a beautiful thing. 💛🍃
September 24, 2022
First Third. 1/4/22
780 pages of O. Henry stories are too much to read at once. 101 stories are too many to read at once.
The stories were written to be read one at a time in a newspaper or magazine. There would be 15 to 20 stories in the story collections issued during his life.
This is a wonderful collection. The Library of America volumes are handsome well-made books. Ben Yagoda has selected stories from O. Henry's whole career and arranged them roughly by subject. We get a selection of his early work followed by stories set in the country, the West, and the tropics and then a selection of his Gentle Grafters stories about a couple of Western conmen. The last half of the collection is stories set in New York.
The early work shows that from the beginning of his career O. Henry loved surprise twists at the end of a story. His first story, written in 1894, has a twist in the last line.
The stories set in the country, the west and the tropics are part travelogue and part story telling. "A Municipal Report" is a brutal portrait of Nashville and a sharp story about racism. "The Caballero's Way" is a picture of the desolate Mexican desert and a story about the arrogance of the law. Despite some grim topics, O. Henry was, at heart, a comic writer who found the human race amusing in its absurdity.
Yagoda, in his "Note on the Texts" at the end of the book, says that O. Henry wrote about 264 short stories. More than half of them were written in three years, 1903 to 1906. As you would expect, there is a certain pattern to the stories.
He begins with a general observation, "Most people would say, if their opinion was asked for, that holding up a train would be a difficult job." or "It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you.".
He introduces us to the characters, often with subtle misdirection to hide the punch line. He unfolds the story efficiently but with enough color and digressions to make it entertaining and then we get a twist in the last line, or at most, the last paragraph.
O. Henry has an amazing ability to create 100s of people who are more than stereotypes but who are memorable and recognizable. We can imagine meeting the people in his stories. He also captures the feel of living on a poor dirt farm in Texas, or as a traveling salesman, or as a small-town bank president.
Great fun. In a while I will read the second third and then the third.
Second Third 9/24/22
The stories are arranged chronologically so the second third is half Western and Latin American stories, and half New York City stories. There is also a selection of the "Gentle Grifter" stories. Jeff Peters is a good-hearted conman who believes in respectable graft. As he explains;
"There are two kinds of graft that ought to be wiped out by law. I mean Wall Street speculation and burglary."
"Nearly everyone will agree with you as to one of them", I said with a laugh.
"Well burglary ought to be wiped out too." said Jeff.
The first book of O. Henry stories I read as a young kid was an illustrated collection of the Gentle Grifter stories and they are still among my favorites.
I was struck by O' Henry's imagination. He was pumping out magazine stories. They had to be the right tone and length. They had to have openings that grabbed and endings that surprised. They had no excessive violence and only the purest love interests. It was a very confined space, and yet O. Henry kept finding new ways to work it.
"The Rubber Plant's Story" is told from the point of view of a New York City apartment rubber plant. "A Dinner At *, The Adventures of An Author with His Own Hero" is a postmodern meta story where the author is struggling to control his hero in the story. It is a precursor to Flann O'Brien or Borges. He loves stories within stories and, of course, misdirection.
Because we know we are getting a surprise ending, it gets easier to guess the ending but in his best stories, the ending is not just a trick, it is a moral. "The Last of the Troubadours" is a sermon on good intentions carried too far. "The Rathskeller and the Rose". is on one of O. Henry's favorite topics, the futility of deceit.
I will read the last third after a suitable break.
780 pages of O. Henry stories are too much to read at once. 101 stories are too many to read at once.
The stories were written to be read one at a time in a newspaper or magazine. There would be 15 to 20 stories in the story collections issued during his life.
This is a wonderful collection. The Library of America volumes are handsome well-made books. Ben Yagoda has selected stories from O. Henry's whole career and arranged them roughly by subject. We get a selection of his early work followed by stories set in the country, the West, and the tropics and then a selection of his Gentle Grafters stories about a couple of Western conmen. The last half of the collection is stories set in New York.
The early work shows that from the beginning of his career O. Henry loved surprise twists at the end of a story. His first story, written in 1894, has a twist in the last line.
The stories set in the country, the west and the tropics are part travelogue and part story telling. "A Municipal Report" is a brutal portrait of Nashville and a sharp story about racism. "The Caballero's Way" is a picture of the desolate Mexican desert and a story about the arrogance of the law. Despite some grim topics, O. Henry was, at heart, a comic writer who found the human race amusing in its absurdity.
Yagoda, in his "Note on the Texts" at the end of the book, says that O. Henry wrote about 264 short stories. More than half of them were written in three years, 1903 to 1906. As you would expect, there is a certain pattern to the stories.
He begins with a general observation, "Most people would say, if their opinion was asked for, that holding up a train would be a difficult job." or "It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you.".
He introduces us to the characters, often with subtle misdirection to hide the punch line. He unfolds the story efficiently but with enough color and digressions to make it entertaining and then we get a twist in the last line, or at most, the last paragraph.
O. Henry has an amazing ability to create 100s of people who are more than stereotypes but who are memorable and recognizable. We can imagine meeting the people in his stories. He also captures the feel of living on a poor dirt farm in Texas, or as a traveling salesman, or as a small-town bank president.
Great fun. In a while I will read the second third and then the third.
Second Third 9/24/22
The stories are arranged chronologically so the second third is half Western and Latin American stories, and half New York City stories. There is also a selection of the "Gentle Grifter" stories. Jeff Peters is a good-hearted conman who believes in respectable graft. As he explains;
"There are two kinds of graft that ought to be wiped out by law. I mean Wall Street speculation and burglary."
"Nearly everyone will agree with you as to one of them", I said with a laugh.
"Well burglary ought to be wiped out too." said Jeff.
The first book of O. Henry stories I read as a young kid was an illustrated collection of the Gentle Grifter stories and they are still among my favorites.
I was struck by O' Henry's imagination. He was pumping out magazine stories. They had to be the right tone and length. They had to have openings that grabbed and endings that surprised. They had no excessive violence and only the purest love interests. It was a very confined space, and yet O. Henry kept finding new ways to work it.
"The Rubber Plant's Story" is told from the point of view of a New York City apartment rubber plant. "A Dinner At *, The Adventures of An Author with His Own Hero" is a postmodern meta story where the author is struggling to control his hero in the story. It is a precursor to Flann O'Brien or Borges. He loves stories within stories and, of course, misdirection.
Because we know we are getting a surprise ending, it gets easier to guess the ending but in his best stories, the ending is not just a trick, it is a moral. "The Last of the Troubadours" is a sermon on good intentions carried too far. "The Rathskeller and the Rose". is on one of O. Henry's favorite topics, the futility of deceit.
I will read the last third after a suitable break.
August 15, 2022
This Library of America volume contains 101 short stories by William Sidney Porter (aka O’Henry). While there are a few head scratchers and some real stinkers, the overwhelming majority are fascinating, including some masterpieces ( The Leaf, The Gift of the Magi, Tommy’s Burglar, The Green Door, The Hiding of Black Bill, & the famous Ransom of Red Chief).
With a unique style all his own, O’Henry shows a keen sense of human nature with humor, pathos, love, compassion, social commentary, and almost always an ending with a twist.
I should note that anyone looking to build his vocabulary will find a treasure trove of new words here. O’Henry was either showing off or had a Thesaurus at his elbow while composing. (Gibbous, fugacious, viscid, etiolate, for example). If you pick up this volume, you would be wise to have a dictionary nearby too! ENJOY!
With a unique style all his own, O’Henry shows a keen sense of human nature with humor, pathos, love, compassion, social commentary, and almost always an ending with a twist.
I should note that anyone looking to build his vocabulary will find a treasure trove of new words here. O’Henry was either showing off or had a Thesaurus at his elbow while composing. (Gibbous, fugacious, viscid, etiolate, for example). If you pick up this volume, you would be wise to have a dictionary nearby too! ENJOY!
April 14, 2022
For decades I’ve read and collected the “Best American Short Stories” for each year. They are characteristic of their time. For example, in the post 9/11/2001 collections you see increasing references to terrorism.
This collection of 101 O. Henry stories takes you back to the United States of the late 1800s. In one, hoboes are using box cars for transportation, with freight of all sorts in the railroad cars. Today we have unit trains and shipping containers, not boxcars.
In these stories the New Orleans suburbs still had sugar cane plantations. You heated houses with coal.
Another story describes the hubbub of the Houston train station, with “the volapuk cries of the brakeman.” That reference sent me to Google: “volapuk” was an artificial language devised in 1879 and proposed for international use by a German cleric, much like Esperanto.
You’re reminded from story #1 that the “good old days” weren’t so good and were a time of numerous land claim frauds.
This collection takes you far beyond the excised O. Henry that you might have read in school. “The Gift of the Magi” is a master of literary irony but William Sidney Porter wrote almost 400 short stories, many with a journalist’s keen observation of the surroundings. This collection has 101 of them, arranged chronologically.
I didn’t expect many surprises, but one is that the original Cisco Kid appears in an O. Henry story, though he’s a villain and not the hero that early television made of him.
A number of words or terms are used by O. Henry that sent me to Google:
Welkin: the heavenly sky, often a reference to the sky as night approaches
“the eyes of Melpomene”: a daughter of Zeus who is best-known today for being the Muse of Tragedy
I was a quarter of the way through the collection when I realized that notes in the back of the book explain some of the references. But Google’s more complete.
This collection of 101 O. Henry stories takes you back to the United States of the late 1800s. In one, hoboes are using box cars for transportation, with freight of all sorts in the railroad cars. Today we have unit trains and shipping containers, not boxcars.
In these stories the New Orleans suburbs still had sugar cane plantations. You heated houses with coal.
Another story describes the hubbub of the Houston train station, with “the volapuk cries of the brakeman.” That reference sent me to Google: “volapuk” was an artificial language devised in 1879 and proposed for international use by a German cleric, much like Esperanto.
You’re reminded from story #1 that the “good old days” weren’t so good and were a time of numerous land claim frauds.
This collection takes you far beyond the excised O. Henry that you might have read in school. “The Gift of the Magi” is a master of literary irony but William Sidney Porter wrote almost 400 short stories, many with a journalist’s keen observation of the surroundings. This collection has 101 of them, arranged chronologically.
I didn’t expect many surprises, but one is that the original Cisco Kid appears in an O. Henry story, though he’s a villain and not the hero that early television made of him.
A number of words or terms are used by O. Henry that sent me to Google:
Welkin: the heavenly sky, often a reference to the sky as night approaches
“the eyes of Melpomene”: a daughter of Zeus who is best-known today for being the Muse of Tragedy
I was a quarter of the way through the collection when I realized that notes in the back of the book explain some of the references. But Google’s more complete.
December 3, 2021
O. Henry is really good. He was a master of the ironic twist. Unfortunately, the ironic twists of his stories mean that, after you've been reading them for a while, you start to see them coming. You know that something is going to catch you off-guard, but that means you're always on guard. The stories are great, but reading them back-to-back-to-back doesn't work for long.
That being said, I was delighted by the stories until that point. I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
That being said, I was delighted by the stories until that point. I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
September 26, 2023
I read only 11 of the 101 stories, so this will not be a comprehensive review of this book nor will I proclaim to have a clear picture of O. Henry's œuvre. From the beginning, I thought O. Henry's prose transmitted his voice strongly. But my first reaction was that I didn't appreciate the flat/iconic/stock characters he wrote. Also they felt like anecdotes more than complete stories. I wasn't impressed.
That is, until I trawled the internet to read about why O. Henry is so beloved. It was on a forum post (Reddit, I think), that I came across someone who suggested that you ought to look at the stories like comic strips. You came for the same formula, week after week, to see new variations on it. I was able to enjoy the last 5 or 6 stories much more with that lens.
However, I understand O. Henry's artistic aims better than I like them. To continue the comics analogy, an O. Henry story is more like a Garfield strip than a Calvin and Hobbes ones. Funny pretty often, but it doesn't leave much of an impression on you.
For reference the stories I read were "The Ghost that Came to Old Angles", "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking", "The Ransom of Red Chief", "Hearts and Hands", "The Last of the Troubadors", "Ships", "Conscience in Art", "The Skylight Room", "The Last Leaf", "The Gift of the Magi", and "The Snow Man". If I had to choose, my favorites were "The Last Leaf", "The Snow Man", and "Hearts and Hands".
That is, until I trawled the internet to read about why O. Henry is so beloved. It was on a forum post (Reddit, I think), that I came across someone who suggested that you ought to look at the stories like comic strips. You came for the same formula, week after week, to see new variations on it. I was able to enjoy the last 5 or 6 stories much more with that lens.
However, I understand O. Henry's artistic aims better than I like them. To continue the comics analogy, an O. Henry story is more like a Garfield strip than a Calvin and Hobbes ones. Funny pretty often, but it doesn't leave much of an impression on you.
For reference the stories I read were "The Ghost that Came to Old Angles", "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking", "The Ransom of Red Chief", "Hearts and Hands", "The Last of the Troubadors", "Ships", "Conscience in Art", "The Skylight Room", "The Last Leaf", "The Gift of the Magi", and "The Snow Man". If I had to choose, my favorites were "The Last Leaf", "The Snow Man", and "Hearts and Hands".
September 8, 2021
The master of the ironic turnaround, O. Henry was also a convicted embezzler who spent years in prison, and who lost several family members to what was then called "consumption", tuberculosis. Some of his stories are classics, some are bound to appeal to everyone, others, not so much. His use of slang and an almost bothersome style of vocabulary proves time and again that he is smarter than his readers, at least, and apparently, in his mind. I found gems herein that I had never heard of, but will linger in my consciousness until I slump into the grave. If you try to read all his stories in a row, without stopping to read anything else, you are bound to become tired of him, but some of his best are from the period that occurred toward the end of his life.
Read
March 14, 2022Read The Last Leaf as it was mentioned in Kate DiCamillo's Franklin Endicott and the Third Key
July 12, 2020
A long old slog, but it's hard not to admire the craft of O. Henry.
Granted, to modern ears, there's a simplicity to his stories, at times even a predictability. More seriously, there are racial views reflective of the times it was written in. Never hostile, but casually prejudiced nevertheless.
Yet there's much gold here, both a delight in language and a hearty humour. And all extremely good-natured. Very enjoyable.
Granted, to modern ears, there's a simplicity to his stories, at times even a predictability. More seriously, there are racial views reflective of the times it was written in. Never hostile, but casually prejudiced nevertheless.
Yet there's much gold here, both a delight in language and a hearty humour. And all extremely good-natured. Very enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews