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The Trimmed Lamp
This short story collection, a facsimile of the 1907 Authorized Edition, features the title story plus "A Madison Square Arabian Night," "A Midsummer Knight's Dream," "Elsie in New York," and many more.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1907
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About the author
O. Henry
2,921 books1,877 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 - 25 of 25 reviews
September 1, 2024
The Trimmed Lamp is a kind of sequel to The Four Million — a second collection of tales exclusively devoted to the New York City of the 20th century’s first decade. Shop girls, bums, disinherited millionaire’s scions, cops, crooks, con men, artists, working stiffs, immigrants, and political bosses all enliven these pages that make up O. Henry’s enduring fables of New York.
This volume only contains one truly classic O. Henry story — The Last Leaf — but it is among the best he ever penned. And though it has its fair share of hastily written stinkers, there are also lesser known gems here that display the charm, wit, and clever twist endings that were the author’s hallmark.
The Trimmed Lamp: Two friends, shop girl Nancy and laundress Lou have distinctly different approaches to living and finding their “millionaire.”
”When I sell out, it’s not going to be on any bargain day. Yes, I’m looking out for a catch, but it’s got to be able to do something more than make a noise like a toy bank.”
3 ⭐️
A Madison Square Arabian Nights: A wealthy man entertains an indigent from the street to take his mind off his troubles. The guest was once a successful portrait artist who was ruined because his paintings uncannily captured an ineffable quality in his sitters that revealed their inner nature. He tells his tale, and also contributes an invaluable service that eases his host’s worried mind.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball:
”This document is intended to strike somewhere between a temperance lecture and a bartender’s guide.”
When an overindulgent young husband goes on the water wagon it disrupts his domestic bliss. That is, until the memorized wisdom of Omar’s Rubaiyat comes to the rescue.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Pendulum: A man’s domestic routine is disrupted when his wife is called away by her sick mother. Her absence reveals to him her value, and he determines to reform and treat her better. But routines are hard to break.
3 ⭐️
Two Thanksgiving Day Gentleman:
”The big city has made Thanksgiving Day an institution. The last Thursday in November is the only day in the year on which it recognizes the part of America lying across the ferries. Yes, a day of celebration, exclusively American.”
Thanksgiving Day, built around a feast, celebrates abundance. This often translates to celebrating gluttony. O. Henry slyly acknowledged that in this story of a bum who is treated to two holiday feasts, and adds in a kicker of irony with the fate of the gentleman who hosted the second one.
4 ⭐️
The Assessor of Success: A confidence man plies his trade with self-satisfied aplomb until a reminder of his more innocent youth stings him with shame and regret.
”Do you know what three divisions of people are easiest to over-reach in transactions of all kinds?…The answer is just men, women, and children. The world is full of greenhorns.”
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Buyer from Cactus City: A vignette of simple, sincere Texas businessman entranced by the cynical, independent New York girl sent to dinner with him to close a deal. O. Henry was always less amusing when trying hard to be conventional.
2 ⭐️
The Badge of Policeman O’Roon: At the rate O. Henry churned out stories it was inevitable that some just wouldn’t work. In this one he referenced the famous Rough Riders of the Spanish American War (here called the Gentle Riders) to explain a friendship between a Knickerbocker millionaire and a NYC mounted cop. The twist is cheap and unconvincing.
2 ⭐️
Brickdust Row: A bored, rich young swell, just come into the inheritance of his property, visits Coney Island for amusement with a young woman he met on the ferry. This story encompasses class issues, and the odd moral code of the day, but what makes it stand out is a brilliant description of Coney Island as viewed for the first time by the swell — first seen as vulgar, false, and disgusting, but then transformed into an idealized fairyland of possibility. It’s a magnificent word portrait of the idea of Coney Island.
”Almost humbled, Blinker rolled up the short sleeves of his mind and joined the idealists.”
4 ⭐️
The Making of a New Yorker: A Tramp comes to call New York his own.
”He was called a tramp, but that was only an elliptical way of saying that he was a philosopher, an artist, a traveler, a naturalist and a discoverer. But most of all he was a poet.”
3 1/2 ⭐️
Vanity and Some Sables: A gang tough attempts to go straight for his girl, and manages the trick until gifting her with some sables complicated the story.
3 ⭐️
The Social Triangle: A tale of class and social distinction. Ikey, a working stiff, is willing to spend a week’s wages at the bar just to attract the momentary attention of big political boss Billy McMahon. Billy, in turn, humbly offers his political assistance to millionaire Van Duyckink with the millionaire’s philanthropy project just for a brief acknowledgment from his idol. Van Duyckink receives his own thrill from the kick his charity project gives, and the handshake of the common working man — Ikey.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Purple Dress : A sentimental tale of a shop girl and her lovely dress. Nicely told.
3 ⭐️
The Foreign Policy of Company 99: A fireman obsessed with the Russo-Japanese War, a dramatic wreck of a horse-drawn fire engine going full speed, mistrust and mistreatment of immigrants, and a spectacular horseback rescue, topped by an O. Henry twist.
4 ⭐️
The Lost Blend: A couple of adventurers strive to re-create a magical cocktail, and a shy, love-struck bartender finally finds his voice.
3 1/2 ⭐️
A Harlem Tragedy: A humorous story praising domestic abuse as sign of love? The only use of this tale is to show how much public morals have changed in the last 120 years.
1 ⭐️
The Guilty Party: I’m not a fan of O. Henry’s morality tales — his wit and charm simply don’t survive a heavy-handed moral message. Mean, corrupting city streets, uncaring parents, fallen women, murder and suicide, served up with a chaser fantasy of after life judgement do not a good O. Henry tale make.
1 1/2 ⭐️
A Midsummer Knight’s Dream: Hot time, summer in the city, when those who can leave for the Adirondacks. Slight, sentimental tale.
2 1/2 ⭐️
According To Their Lights: Two men fallen from different heights — a disgraced former police precinct captain, and a disinherited swell, companion together on the streets to eek out survival. Each has an opportunity at restoration, but each, according to their individual codes, pass.
4 ⭐️
The Last Leaf: ”So to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth century gables and Dutch attics and low rents.
A fair young artist lays sick in her gabled room, morbidity fixated on her own death. An old man, her neighbor, a cantankerous failure of an artist, fixated on the masterpiece he will someday paint, makes a great sacrifice to save her. This is one of O. Henry’s best — an absolute masterpiece of sentimentality with one of his most successful twist endings.
5 ⭐️
The Count and the Wedding Guest: A young woman in morning courted, a dead count, a romance, wedding plans, and a conundrum.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Country of Elusion: You know how the Bohemian feast of reason keeps up with the courses. Humor with the oysters; wit with the soup; repartee with the entree; brag with the roast; knocks for Whistler and Kipling with the salad; songs with the coffee; the slapstick with the cordials.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
The Ferry of Unfulfilment: A chance for a shop girl to land a Klondike prospector millionaire foiled by weariness and dream.
2 1/2 ⭐️
The Tale of a Tainted Tenner: A tale of money narrated by a ten-spot.
”A tainted ten certainly does get action on Broadway. I was alimony once, and got folded in a little dogskin purse among a lot of dimes.”
3 ⭐️
Elsie in New York: Another heavy-handed tale that pushed out all of the charm and much of the wit.
1 1/2 ⭐️
This volume only contains one truly classic O. Henry story — The Last Leaf — but it is among the best he ever penned. And though it has its fair share of hastily written stinkers, there are also lesser known gems here that display the charm, wit, and clever twist endings that were the author’s hallmark.
The Trimmed Lamp: Two friends, shop girl Nancy and laundress Lou have distinctly different approaches to living and finding their “millionaire.”
”When I sell out, it’s not going to be on any bargain day. Yes, I’m looking out for a catch, but it’s got to be able to do something more than make a noise like a toy bank.”
3 ⭐️
A Madison Square Arabian Nights: A wealthy man entertains an indigent from the street to take his mind off his troubles. The guest was once a successful portrait artist who was ruined because his paintings uncannily captured an ineffable quality in his sitters that revealed their inner nature. He tells his tale, and also contributes an invaluable service that eases his host’s worried mind.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball:
”This document is intended to strike somewhere between a temperance lecture and a bartender’s guide.”
When an overindulgent young husband goes on the water wagon it disrupts his domestic bliss. That is, until the memorized wisdom of Omar’s Rubaiyat comes to the rescue.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Pendulum: A man’s domestic routine is disrupted when his wife is called away by her sick mother. Her absence reveals to him her value, and he determines to reform and treat her better. But routines are hard to break.
3 ⭐️
Two Thanksgiving Day Gentleman:
”The big city has made Thanksgiving Day an institution. The last Thursday in November is the only day in the year on which it recognizes the part of America lying across the ferries. Yes, a day of celebration, exclusively American.”
Thanksgiving Day, built around a feast, celebrates abundance. This often translates to celebrating gluttony. O. Henry slyly acknowledged that in this story of a bum who is treated to two holiday feasts, and adds in a kicker of irony with the fate of the gentleman who hosted the second one.
4 ⭐️
The Assessor of Success: A confidence man plies his trade with self-satisfied aplomb until a reminder of his more innocent youth stings him with shame and regret.
”Do you know what three divisions of people are easiest to over-reach in transactions of all kinds?…The answer is just men, women, and children. The world is full of greenhorns.”
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Buyer from Cactus City: A vignette of simple, sincere Texas businessman entranced by the cynical, independent New York girl sent to dinner with him to close a deal. O. Henry was always less amusing when trying hard to be conventional.
2 ⭐️
The Badge of Policeman O’Roon: At the rate O. Henry churned out stories it was inevitable that some just wouldn’t work. In this one he referenced the famous Rough Riders of the Spanish American War (here called the Gentle Riders) to explain a friendship between a Knickerbocker millionaire and a NYC mounted cop. The twist is cheap and unconvincing.
2 ⭐️
Brickdust Row: A bored, rich young swell, just come into the inheritance of his property, visits Coney Island for amusement with a young woman he met on the ferry. This story encompasses class issues, and the odd moral code of the day, but what makes it stand out is a brilliant description of Coney Island as viewed for the first time by the swell — first seen as vulgar, false, and disgusting, but then transformed into an idealized fairyland of possibility. It’s a magnificent word portrait of the idea of Coney Island.
”Almost humbled, Blinker rolled up the short sleeves of his mind and joined the idealists.”
4 ⭐️
The Making of a New Yorker: A Tramp comes to call New York his own.
”He was called a tramp, but that was only an elliptical way of saying that he was a philosopher, an artist, a traveler, a naturalist and a discoverer. But most of all he was a poet.”
3 1/2 ⭐️
Vanity and Some Sables: A gang tough attempts to go straight for his girl, and manages the trick until gifting her with some sables complicated the story.
3 ⭐️
The Social Triangle: A tale of class and social distinction. Ikey, a working stiff, is willing to spend a week’s wages at the bar just to attract the momentary attention of big political boss Billy McMahon. Billy, in turn, humbly offers his political assistance to millionaire Van Duyckink with the millionaire’s philanthropy project just for a brief acknowledgment from his idol. Van Duyckink receives his own thrill from the kick his charity project gives, and the handshake of the common working man — Ikey.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Purple Dress : A sentimental tale of a shop girl and her lovely dress. Nicely told.
3 ⭐️
The Foreign Policy of Company 99: A fireman obsessed with the Russo-Japanese War, a dramatic wreck of a horse-drawn fire engine going full speed, mistrust and mistreatment of immigrants, and a spectacular horseback rescue, topped by an O. Henry twist.
4 ⭐️
The Lost Blend: A couple of adventurers strive to re-create a magical cocktail, and a shy, love-struck bartender finally finds his voice.
3 1/2 ⭐️
A Harlem Tragedy: A humorous story praising domestic abuse as sign of love? The only use of this tale is to show how much public morals have changed in the last 120 years.
1 ⭐️
The Guilty Party: I’m not a fan of O. Henry’s morality tales — his wit and charm simply don’t survive a heavy-handed moral message. Mean, corrupting city streets, uncaring parents, fallen women, murder and suicide, served up with a chaser fantasy of after life judgement do not a good O. Henry tale make.
1 1/2 ⭐️
A Midsummer Knight’s Dream: Hot time, summer in the city, when those who can leave for the Adirondacks. Slight, sentimental tale.
2 1/2 ⭐️
According To Their Lights: Two men fallen from different heights — a disgraced former police precinct captain, and a disinherited swell, companion together on the streets to eek out survival. Each has an opportunity at restoration, but each, according to their individual codes, pass.
4 ⭐️
The Last Leaf: ”So to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth century gables and Dutch attics and low rents.
A fair young artist lays sick in her gabled room, morbidity fixated on her own death. An old man, her neighbor, a cantankerous failure of an artist, fixated on the masterpiece he will someday paint, makes a great sacrifice to save her. This is one of O. Henry’s best — an absolute masterpiece of sentimentality with one of his most successful twist endings.
5 ⭐️
The Count and the Wedding Guest: A young woman in morning courted, a dead count, a romance, wedding plans, and a conundrum.
3 1/2 ⭐️
The Country of Elusion: You know how the Bohemian feast of reason keeps up with the courses. Humor with the oysters; wit with the soup; repartee with the entree; brag with the roast; knocks for Whistler and Kipling with the salad; songs with the coffee; the slapstick with the cordials.”
2 1/2 ⭐️
The Ferry of Unfulfilment: A chance for a shop girl to land a Klondike prospector millionaire foiled by weariness and dream.
2 1/2 ⭐️
The Tale of a Tainted Tenner: A tale of money narrated by a ten-spot.
”A tainted ten certainly does get action on Broadway. I was alimony once, and got folded in a little dogskin purse among a lot of dimes.”
3 ⭐️
Elsie in New York: Another heavy-handed tale that pushed out all of the charm and much of the wit.
1 1/2 ⭐️
May 10, 2012
Very clever stories, written with a real love of language.
I remember reading some O'Henry stories when I was a kid, because my grandfather really loved them. Back then, all I cared about was the plot twist at the end (which each story has). Now, as an adult, I can enjoy the journey on the way to the end.
The stories are told in a very playful way. There are a lot of winks to the reader. The narrator is often saying something funny about the characters, pointing out their foibles, and generally having a good time.
Some of the humor is pretty dated, but so are the settings. The one story that I really, really didn't like tried to put a humorous face on domestic violence, but it also took place in a Harlem that was populated by Irish people. So that's out-of-date by a couple of shifts.
Another thing I enjoyed, as a Native New Yorker (or "Noo Yawkuh", if you insist) was the view into this previous incarnation of my city, it's rhythms, and the people who made it what it was.
The social mores were also very entertaining. I know it may shock some of you, but some of they young ladies might allow gentlemen suitors to kiss them. Yes! Kissing! Before being joined in holy wedlock. Alas, civilization!
I remember reading some O'Henry stories when I was a kid, because my grandfather really loved them. Back then, all I cared about was the plot twist at the end (which each story has). Now, as an adult, I can enjoy the journey on the way to the end.
The stories are told in a very playful way. There are a lot of winks to the reader. The narrator is often saying something funny about the characters, pointing out their foibles, and generally having a good time.
Some of the humor is pretty dated, but so are the settings. The one story that I really, really didn't like tried to put a humorous face on domestic violence, but it also took place in a Harlem that was populated by Irish people. So that's out-of-date by a couple of shifts.
Another thing I enjoyed, as a Native New Yorker (or "Noo Yawkuh", if you insist) was the view into this previous incarnation of my city, it's rhythms, and the people who made it what it was.
The social mores were also very entertaining. I know it may shock some of you, but some of they young ladies might allow gentlemen suitors to kiss them. Yes! Kissing! Before being joined in holy wedlock. Alas, civilization!
August 20, 2025
ENGLISH: 25 short stories by O.Henry. This is the second time I've read them all. Some of them (the best) I've read more times. Those I liked best are the following:
In the first place: The last leaf. In the second place: The pendulum and The count and the wedding guest.
ESPAÑOL: 25 relatos cortos de O. Henry. Esta es la segunda vez que los he leído. Algunos (los mejores) los he leído más veces. Los que más me han gustado son los siguientes:
En primer lugar: La última hoja. En segundo lugar: El péndulo y El conde y el invitado a la boda.
In the first place: The last leaf. In the second place: The pendulum and The count and the wedding guest.
ESPAÑOL: 25 relatos cortos de O. Henry. Esta es la segunda vez que los he leído. Algunos (los mejores) los he leído más veces. Los que más me han gustado son los siguientes:
En primer lugar: La última hoja. En segundo lugar: El péndulo y El conde y el invitado a la boda.
May 25, 2023
Clever, prosaic, but dated.
October 18, 2021
This, the second volume in O. Henry’s 10-volume set of short story collections, continues with the theme set in its predecessor, The Four Million. I first encountered these stories way back in the 1950s, finding them amusing but quite dated. Re-visiting them now, I’m stuck by the universality and timelessness of his themes: they are all about “The Human Comedy”, exploring the quirky nature of everyday encounters with our fellow man. So despite being stuck in a very early 20th century time warp and, like the first volume, confined to NYC, the truths they reveal are as valid today as they ever were. He is at his best when observing the lives of the less fortunate members of society: shop-girls, failed artists and entrepreneurs, aging unmarried women, street people, the down-and-out. He was undoubtedly an unrepentant sentimentalist who at times masqueraded as a cynic. Porter’s breezy style and his trademark “twist” at the end of each tale are features that are for most readers an “acquired taste”, sort of like sky diving or ouzo — either you like it or you’re going to avoid it altogether. And even if it suits you, it’s best appreciated as an occasional indulgence.
This set includes one of his best known and most appealing stories “The Last Leaf”. The remainder are a mixed lot but most of them are well worth the short time required to read them.
This set includes one of his best known and most appealing stories “The Last Leaf”. The remainder are a mixed lot but most of them are well worth the short time required to read them.
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.
There’s a peculiar tenderness to ‘The Trimmed Lamp’, a tenderness that doesn’t soften the world but illuminates it the way a streetlamp lights a wet pavement—soft, reflective, full of shadows that dance if you stare too long. Reading this story during the Covid years felt almost illicit, like opening a window into a world where time moves with human rhythms rather than algorithmic ones.
The story’s pulse, its footstep-like pacing, its small dreams and smaller disappointments, all felt eerily familiar to anyone who survived those years of suspended animation when the world seemed to turn slower, as though the earth had suddenly remembered the luxury of hesitation.
O. Henry does something here that he rarely gets credit for: he writes not about grand gestures but about atmospheres, about those imperceptible cultural drafts that shape lives more than any twist ending could ever do. The city he paints is alive, though never loud. It’s a city made of half-echoes: whispers in shared boarding rooms, the rustle of skirts, the clatter of shop counters, and the faint hum of longing beneath all those everyday choices.
And because O. Henry is the patron saint of the urban pulse, he knows exactly how much noise to make and how much to leave unsaid.
At the centre, you find companionship—quiet, steady, almost ritualistic. Covid taught us to appreciate the understated rituals of togetherness: the tea shared on balconies, the WhatsApp pings that felt like handshakes, and the evening conversations that tried their best to replace proximity with sound. ‘The Trimmed Lamp’ moves within that same emotional temperature. Two women, two temperaments, two ways of dreaming in a world that gives them very few sanctioned arenas in which to dream.
But O. Henry doesn’t make either of them symbols. They are not metaphors for womanhood or urban struggle or class desire. They are simply themselves, and that’s what makes them feel so contemporary. In an age where every identity is over-interpreted, these characters breathe like real people slipping through the cracks of their own expectations.
Their differences feel almost like a small philosophical debate—one that plays out through gestures rather than theories. One of them dreams with her head tilted upward, scanning the skyline for something larger, brighter, grander—a dream lit not by practicality but by the romantic haze of possibility.
The other looks straight ahead, almost level-eyed, practicality wrapped around her aspirations like a shawl. She doesn’t reject the dream, but she refuses to chase it barefoot.
What O. Henry captures is the delicate choreography between hope and pragmatism. During lockdown, this tension became a daily interior tug-of-war: should one plan for the future or survive the moment? Should one dream of travel or focus on stocking flour? Should one imagine new beginnings or simply learn to breathe steadily through the mask?
‘The Trimmed Lamp’ quietly echoes this oscillation. Neither woman is right; neither woman is wrong. Both are navigating the same city, but they hear different rhythms, and that difference feels uncannily like the difference between people who coped with the pandemic by planning for the life after and people who coped by living fiercely in the now.
The men of the story—though orbiting rather than dominating—carry their own symbolic weight. They represent possibilities, but not salvation. They are markers of direction, not destiny. And this is where O. Henry’s artistry glimmers: he refuses to make romance the gravitational force of the narrative.
For a writer often pigeonholed into twist endings and sentimental closures, ‘The Trimmed Lamp’ feels remarkably modern in the way it pivots the story around women’s interiority, friendship, and choice rather than romance-as-resolution. It’s a story that understands that a woman’s emotional life is not a waiting room for male arrival.
This sensitivity feels startlingly aligned with 21st-century sensibilities. Contemporary literature has spent the last two decades wrestling with female agency, interiority, friendship narratives, and the politics of choosing one’s own life. Reading O. Henry here feels like discovering that a great-uncle you dismissed as old-fashioned was, strangely, always ahead of the curve.
What also makes the story feel modern is its subtle commentary on economic autonomy. These women work. They earn. They make decisions based on budgets and desires, dreams and dinner money, compromise and ambition.
Covid, again, made this feel painfully relevant: the fragility of income, the weight of bills, and the way survival often forces dreams into the margins of one’s notebook. In this quiet story of everyday life, O. Henry captures the precarious dignity of the working woman long before her experience became a sociological category.
The city, too, plays the role of a labyrinth. There’s a sense of continual searching, continual adjusting, and continual moving toward something vaguely luminous but continually redefined. And because the city is not a metaphor but a lived terrain, the choices these women make feel grounded in reality rather than narrative convenience.
If one chooses practicality, it’s not because she lacks imagination but because she understands the stakes differently. If the other chooses risk, it’s not because she’s naïve but because she recognises that sometimes the heart needs adventure more than safety.
The beauty of the story lies in the way O. Henry lets both worldviews coexist without privileging one. Postmodernism loves this multiplicity—the refusal to reduce life into a single coherent meaning, the celebration of fragmented truths, and the acceptance that contradiction is a valid mode of being.
In ‘The Trimmed Lamp’, truth is not a final object but a moving target shaped by personality, circumstance, desire, and temperament. There is no moral. There is no lesson. There is only life, shimmering with tiny choices.
And the humour—oh, the humour is delicious. Dry, sly, barely-there humour, like the kind people used in lockdown to cope with surreality. O. Henry’s lines land softly but sharply. You feel the warmth beneath the wit, the affection beneath the irony. He isn’t judging his characters; he’s teasing them the way one teases people one genuinely cares about. This makes the story feel alive in a way that transcends time.
Most importantly, ‘The Trimmed Lamp’ feels like a story about possibility. Not the blockbuster kind, not the fireworks kind, not the cinematic kind—just the everyday possibility that life can still change direction on an ordinary evening. Covid took that away for a while. Then slowly, hesitantly, it gave it back. Reading this story during that period felt like remembering that life does, eventually, resume the delicate art of surprise.
And there’s friendship—real friendship, not sitcom friendship, not Instagram friendship. The kind that survives differences. The kind that survives mistakes. The kind that doesn’t demand sameness.
O. Henry’s portrayal of female friendship here is astonishingly tender for its time. It feels like an early ancestor of all the modern narratives that centre women simply living together, laughing together, working together, disagreeing, reconciling, and continuing their small shared rituals. That affectionate realism is what makes the story timeless.
In the end, ‘The Trimmed Lamp’ is not about romance or suspense or fate. It is about who we become in the presence of another person who knows us well enough to challenge us but loves us enough to let us be. It is about how dreams rub against reality without tearing it. It is about how every choice—practical or impulsive—casts a glow that shapes the life that follows.
It is a soft story, but not a weak one. A gentle story, but not a sentimental one. A story that still breathes, still warms, still glimmers the way a trimmed lamp glows after its wick has been carefully shaped to give a cleaner, steadier flame.
Just quietly trusting in the idea that humans—even shady, scheming humans—carry an ember of goodness that refuses to die.
And if that isn’t the most pandemic-era lesson ever, I don’t know what is.
Give it a go.
’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.
There’s a peculiar tenderness to ‘The Trimmed Lamp’, a tenderness that doesn’t soften the world but illuminates it the way a streetlamp lights a wet pavement—soft, reflective, full of shadows that dance if you stare too long. Reading this story during the Covid years felt almost illicit, like opening a window into a world where time moves with human rhythms rather than algorithmic ones.
The story’s pulse, its footstep-like pacing, its small dreams and smaller disappointments, all felt eerily familiar to anyone who survived those years of suspended animation when the world seemed to turn slower, as though the earth had suddenly remembered the luxury of hesitation.
O. Henry does something here that he rarely gets credit for: he writes not about grand gestures but about atmospheres, about those imperceptible cultural drafts that shape lives more than any twist ending could ever do. The city he paints is alive, though never loud. It’s a city made of half-echoes: whispers in shared boarding rooms, the rustle of skirts, the clatter of shop counters, and the faint hum of longing beneath all those everyday choices.
And because O. Henry is the patron saint of the urban pulse, he knows exactly how much noise to make and how much to leave unsaid.
At the centre, you find companionship—quiet, steady, almost ritualistic. Covid taught us to appreciate the understated rituals of togetherness: the tea shared on balconies, the WhatsApp pings that felt like handshakes, and the evening conversations that tried their best to replace proximity with sound. ‘The Trimmed Lamp’ moves within that same emotional temperature. Two women, two temperaments, two ways of dreaming in a world that gives them very few sanctioned arenas in which to dream.
But O. Henry doesn’t make either of them symbols. They are not metaphors for womanhood or urban struggle or class desire. They are simply themselves, and that’s what makes them feel so contemporary. In an age where every identity is over-interpreted, these characters breathe like real people slipping through the cracks of their own expectations.
Their differences feel almost like a small philosophical debate—one that plays out through gestures rather than theories. One of them dreams with her head tilted upward, scanning the skyline for something larger, brighter, grander—a dream lit not by practicality but by the romantic haze of possibility.
The other looks straight ahead, almost level-eyed, practicality wrapped around her aspirations like a shawl. She doesn’t reject the dream, but she refuses to chase it barefoot.
What O. Henry captures is the delicate choreography between hope and pragmatism. During lockdown, this tension became a daily interior tug-of-war: should one plan for the future or survive the moment? Should one dream of travel or focus on stocking flour? Should one imagine new beginnings or simply learn to breathe steadily through the mask?
‘The Trimmed Lamp’ quietly echoes this oscillation. Neither woman is right; neither woman is wrong. Both are navigating the same city, but they hear different rhythms, and that difference feels uncannily like the difference between people who coped with the pandemic by planning for the life after and people who coped by living fiercely in the now.
The men of the story—though orbiting rather than dominating—carry their own symbolic weight. They represent possibilities, but not salvation. They are markers of direction, not destiny. And this is where O. Henry’s artistry glimmers: he refuses to make romance the gravitational force of the narrative.
For a writer often pigeonholed into twist endings and sentimental closures, ‘The Trimmed Lamp’ feels remarkably modern in the way it pivots the story around women’s interiority, friendship, and choice rather than romance-as-resolution. It’s a story that understands that a woman’s emotional life is not a waiting room for male arrival.
This sensitivity feels startlingly aligned with 21st-century sensibilities. Contemporary literature has spent the last two decades wrestling with female agency, interiority, friendship narratives, and the politics of choosing one’s own life. Reading O. Henry here feels like discovering that a great-uncle you dismissed as old-fashioned was, strangely, always ahead of the curve.
What also makes the story feel modern is its subtle commentary on economic autonomy. These women work. They earn. They make decisions based on budgets and desires, dreams and dinner money, compromise and ambition.
Covid, again, made this feel painfully relevant: the fragility of income, the weight of bills, and the way survival often forces dreams into the margins of one’s notebook. In this quiet story of everyday life, O. Henry captures the precarious dignity of the working woman long before her experience became a sociological category.
The city, too, plays the role of a labyrinth. There’s a sense of continual searching, continual adjusting, and continual moving toward something vaguely luminous but continually redefined. And because the city is not a metaphor but a lived terrain, the choices these women make feel grounded in reality rather than narrative convenience.
If one chooses practicality, it’s not because she lacks imagination but because she understands the stakes differently. If the other chooses risk, it’s not because she’s naïve but because she recognises that sometimes the heart needs adventure more than safety.
The beauty of the story lies in the way O. Henry lets both worldviews coexist without privileging one. Postmodernism loves this multiplicity—the refusal to reduce life into a single coherent meaning, the celebration of fragmented truths, and the acceptance that contradiction is a valid mode of being.
In ‘The Trimmed Lamp’, truth is not a final object but a moving target shaped by personality, circumstance, desire, and temperament. There is no moral. There is no lesson. There is only life, shimmering with tiny choices.
And the humour—oh, the humour is delicious. Dry, sly, barely-there humour, like the kind people used in lockdown to cope with surreality. O. Henry’s lines land softly but sharply. You feel the warmth beneath the wit, the affection beneath the irony. He isn’t judging his characters; he’s teasing them the way one teases people one genuinely cares about. This makes the story feel alive in a way that transcends time.
Most importantly, ‘The Trimmed Lamp’ feels like a story about possibility. Not the blockbuster kind, not the fireworks kind, not the cinematic kind—just the everyday possibility that life can still change direction on an ordinary evening. Covid took that away for a while. Then slowly, hesitantly, it gave it back. Reading this story during that period felt like remembering that life does, eventually, resume the delicate art of surprise.
And there’s friendship—real friendship, not sitcom friendship, not Instagram friendship. The kind that survives differences. The kind that survives mistakes. The kind that doesn’t demand sameness.
O. Henry’s portrayal of female friendship here is astonishingly tender for its time. It feels like an early ancestor of all the modern narratives that centre women simply living together, laughing together, working together, disagreeing, reconciling, and continuing their small shared rituals. That affectionate realism is what makes the story timeless.
In the end, ‘The Trimmed Lamp’ is not about romance or suspense or fate. It is about who we become in the presence of another person who knows us well enough to challenge us but loves us enough to let us be. It is about how dreams rub against reality without tearing it. It is about how every choice—practical or impulsive—casts a glow that shapes the life that follows.
It is a soft story, but not a weak one. A gentle story, but not a sentimental one. A story that still breathes, still warms, still glimmers the way a trimmed lamp glows after its wick has been carefully shaped to give a cleaner, steadier flame.
Just quietly trusting in the idea that humans—even shady, scheming humans—carry an ember of goodness that refuses to die.
And if that isn’t the most pandemic-era lesson ever, I don’t know what is.
Give it a go.
September 18, 2022
O. Henry's "The Trimmed Lamp" is a short story about "shop-girls" and the differences in their jobs one keeps looking to marry a millionaire while receiving low wages in a shop and her friend working manual labor looking for fun and higher wages. I had guessed some of the ending. Striving for something better but not making that be all, keeping values close will help lead to the right path.
Story in short - Two girlfriends come to the city to make their way and find out more about themselves.
I didn't read this edition but from a Delphi collection of his works.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5550
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.”
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introduced to them. Meddlesome Reader: My Lady friends, Miss Nancy and Miss Lou. While you are shaking hands please take notice — cautiously — of their attire. Yes, cautiously; for they are as quick to resent a stare as a lady in a box at the horse show is.
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Now lift your hat and come away, while you receive Lou’s cheery “See you again,” and the sardonic, sweet smile of Nancy that seems, somehow, to miss you and go fluttering like a white moth up over the housetops to the stars. The two waited on the corner for Dan. Dan was Lou’s steady company. Faithful? Well, he was on hand when Mary would have had to hire a dozen subpoena servers to find her lamb.
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“Ain’t you cold, Nance?” said Lou. “Say, what a chump you are for working in that old store for $8. a week! I made $18.50 last week. Of course ironing ain’t as swell work as selling lace behind a counter, but it pays. None of us ironers make less than $10. And I don’t know that it’s any less respectful work, either.” “You can have it,” said Nancy, with uplifted nose. “I’ll take my eight a week and hall bedroom. I like to be among nice things and swell people. And look what a chance I’ve got! Why, one of our glove girls
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5576
married a Pittsburg — steel maker, or blacksmith or something — the other day worth a million dollars. I’ll catch a swell myself some time. I ain’t bragging on my looks or anything; but I’ll take my chances where there’s big prizes offered. What show would a girl have in a laundry?” “Why, that’s where I met Dan,” said Lou, triumphantly. “He came in for his Sunday shirt and collars and saw me at the first board, ironing. We all try to get to work at the first board. Ella Maginnis was sick
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that day, and I had her place. He said he noticed my arms first, how round and white they was. I had my sleeves rolled up. Some nice fellows come into laundries. You can tell ’em by their bringing their clothes in suit cases; and turning in the door sharp and sudden.” “How can you wear a waist like that, Lou?” said Nancy, gazing down at the offending article with sweet scorn in her heavy-lidded eyes. “It shows fierce taste.” “This waist?” cried Lou, with wide-eyed indignation. “Why, I paid
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5584
$16. for this waist. It’s worth twenty-five. A woman left it to be laundered, and never called for it. The boss sold it to me. It’s got yards and yards of hand embroidery on it. Better talk about that ugly, plain thing you’ve got on.” “This ugly, plain thing,” said Nancy, calmly, “was copied from one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing. The girls say her bill in the store last year was $12,000. I made mine, myself. It cost me $1.50. Ten feet away you couldn’t tell it from hers.”
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
I had known that Nancy would become Dan's girl, though Nancy wanted to marry a millionaire, she did not want just to sell herself but find a man that is not a liar. She was proposed to by a rich man but when she heard he was a liar, she refused him. Lou liked to spend money on clothes and she liked her job because it paid more but left when she had an offer by a rich man. She left Dan who became friends with Nancy. Nancy sees Lou, 3 months later and finds she is a kept woman and Lou cries after hearing that Nancy is marrying Dan and seeing her friend in love.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5588
“Oh, well,” said Lou, good-naturedly, “if you want to starve and put on airs, go ahead. But I’ll take my job and good wages; and after hours give me something as fancy and attractive to wear as I am able to buy.” But just then Dan came — a serious young man with a ready-made necktie, who had escaped the city’s brand of frivolity — an electrician earning 30 dollars per week who looked upon Lou with the sad eyes of Romeo, and thought her embroidered waist a web in which any fly should delight to be caught. “My friend, Mr. Owens — shake hands with Miss Danforth,” said Lou. “I’m mighty glad to know you, Miss Danforth,” said Dan, with outstretched hand. “I’ve heard Lou speak of you so often.” “Thanks,” said Nancy, touching his fingers with the tips of her cool ones, “I’ve heard her mention you — a few times.” Lou giggled.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5596
“Did you get that handshake from Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, Nance?” she asked. “If I did, you can feel safe in copying it,” said Nancy. “Oh, I couldn’t use it, at all. It’s too stylish for me. It’s intended to set off diamond rings, that high shake is. Wait till I get a few and then I’ll try it.” “Learn it first,” said Nancy wisely, “and you’ll be more likely to get the rings.” “Now, to settle this argument,” said Dan, with his ready, cheerful
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5601
smile, “let me make a proposition. As I can’t take both of you up to Tiffany’s and do the right thing, what do you say to a little vaudeville? I’ve got the rickets. How about looking at stage diamonds since we can’t shake hands with the real sparklers?” The faithful squire took his place close to the curb; Lou next, a little peacocky in her bright and pretty clothes; Nancy on the inside, slender, and soberly clothed as the sparrow, but with the true Van Alstyne
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Fisher walk — thus they set out for their evening’s moderate diversion. I do not suppose that many look upon a great department store as an educational institution. But the one in which Nancy worked was something like that to her. She was surrounded by beautiful things that breathed of taste and refinement. If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or another’s. The people she served were mostly women whose dress, manners, and position in the social
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5608
world were quoted as criterions. From them Nancy began to take toll — the best from each according to her view. From one she would copy and practice a gesture, from another an eloquent lifting of an eyebrow, from others, a manner of walking, of carrying a purse, of smiling, of greeting a friend, of addressing “inferiors in station.” From her best beloved model, Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, she made requisition for that excellent thing, a soft, low voice as clear as silver and as perfect in articulation as the notes of a thrush. Suffused in the aura of this high social refinement and good breeding, it was impossible for her to escape a deeper effect of it. As good habits are said to be better than good principles, so, perhaps, good manners are better than good habits. The teachings of your parents may not keep alive your New England conscience; but if you sit on a straight-back chair and repeat the words “prisms and pilgrims” forty times the devil will flee from you. And when Nancy spoke in the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5615
Van Alstyne Fisher tones she felt the thrill of noblesse oblige to her very bones.
Story in short - Two girlfriends come to the city to make their way and find out more about themselves.
I didn't read this edition but from a Delphi collection of his works.
➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5550
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.”
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5557
introduced to them. Meddlesome Reader: My Lady friends, Miss Nancy and Miss Lou. While you are shaking hands please take notice — cautiously — of their attire. Yes, cautiously; for they are as quick to resent a stare as a lady in a box at the horse show is.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5568
Now lift your hat and come away, while you receive Lou’s cheery “See you again,” and the sardonic, sweet smile of Nancy that seems, somehow, to miss you and go fluttering like a white moth up over the housetops to the stars. The two waited on the corner for Dan. Dan was Lou’s steady company. Faithful? Well, he was on hand when Mary would have had to hire a dozen subpoena servers to find her lamb.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5572
“Ain’t you cold, Nance?” said Lou. “Say, what a chump you are for working in that old store for $8. a week! I made $18.50 last week. Of course ironing ain’t as swell work as selling lace behind a counter, but it pays. None of us ironers make less than $10. And I don’t know that it’s any less respectful work, either.” “You can have it,” said Nancy, with uplifted nose. “I’ll take my eight a week and hall bedroom. I like to be among nice things and swell people. And look what a chance I’ve got! Why, one of our glove girls
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5576
married a Pittsburg — steel maker, or blacksmith or something — the other day worth a million dollars. I’ll catch a swell myself some time. I ain’t bragging on my looks or anything; but I’ll take my chances where there’s big prizes offered. What show would a girl have in a laundry?” “Why, that’s where I met Dan,” said Lou, triumphantly. “He came in for his Sunday shirt and collars and saw me at the first board, ironing. We all try to get to work at the first board. Ella Maginnis was sick
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5580
that day, and I had her place. He said he noticed my arms first, how round and white they was. I had my sleeves rolled up. Some nice fellows come into laundries. You can tell ’em by their bringing their clothes in suit cases; and turning in the door sharp and sudden.” “How can you wear a waist like that, Lou?” said Nancy, gazing down at the offending article with sweet scorn in her heavy-lidded eyes. “It shows fierce taste.” “This waist?” cried Lou, with wide-eyed indignation. “Why, I paid
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5584
$16. for this waist. It’s worth twenty-five. A woman left it to be laundered, and never called for it. The boss sold it to me. It’s got yards and yards of hand embroidery on it. Better talk about that ugly, plain thing you’ve got on.” “This ugly, plain thing,” said Nancy, calmly, “was copied from one that Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher was wearing. The girls say her bill in the store last year was $12,000. I made mine, myself. It cost me $1.50. Ten feet away you couldn’t tell it from hers.”
❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌❌spoiler alert
I had known that Nancy would become Dan's girl, though Nancy wanted to marry a millionaire, she did not want just to sell herself but find a man that is not a liar. She was proposed to by a rich man but when she heard he was a liar, she refused him. Lou liked to spend money on clothes and she liked her job because it paid more but left when she had an offer by a rich man. She left Dan who became friends with Nancy. Nancy sees Lou, 3 months later and finds she is a kept woman and Lou cries after hearing that Nancy is marrying Dan and seeing her friend in love.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5588
“Oh, well,” said Lou, good-naturedly, “if you want to starve and put on airs, go ahead. But I’ll take my job and good wages; and after hours give me something as fancy and attractive to wear as I am able to buy.” But just then Dan came — a serious young man with a ready-made necktie, who had escaped the city’s brand of frivolity — an electrician earning 30 dollars per week who looked upon Lou with the sad eyes of Romeo, and thought her embroidered waist a web in which any fly should delight to be caught. “My friend, Mr. Owens — shake hands with Miss Danforth,” said Lou. “I’m mighty glad to know you, Miss Danforth,” said Dan, with outstretched hand. “I’ve heard Lou speak of you so often.” “Thanks,” said Nancy, touching his fingers with the tips of her cool ones, “I’ve heard her mention you — a few times.” Lou giggled.
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5596
“Did you get that handshake from Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, Nance?” she asked. “If I did, you can feel safe in copying it,” said Nancy. “Oh, I couldn’t use it, at all. It’s too stylish for me. It’s intended to set off diamond rings, that high shake is. Wait till I get a few and then I’ll try it.” “Learn it first,” said Nancy wisely, “and you’ll be more likely to get the rings.” “Now, to settle this argument,” said Dan, with his ready, cheerful
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5601
smile, “let me make a proposition. As I can’t take both of you up to Tiffany’s and do the right thing, what do you say to a little vaudeville? I’ve got the rickets. How about looking at stage diamonds since we can’t shake hands with the real sparklers?” The faithful squire took his place close to the curb; Lou next, a little peacocky in her bright and pretty clothes; Nancy on the inside, slender, and soberly clothed as the sparrow, but with the true Van Alstyne
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5604
Fisher walk — thus they set out for their evening’s moderate diversion. I do not suppose that many look upon a great department store as an educational institution. But the one in which Nancy worked was something like that to her. She was surrounded by beautiful things that breathed of taste and refinement. If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or another’s. The people she served were mostly women whose dress, manners, and position in the social
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5608
world were quoted as criterions. From them Nancy began to take toll — the best from each according to her view. From one she would copy and practice a gesture, from another an eloquent lifting of an eyebrow, from others, a manner of walking, of carrying a purse, of smiling, of greeting a friend, of addressing “inferiors in station.” From her best beloved model, Mrs. Van Alstyne Fisher, she made requisition for that excellent thing, a soft, low voice as clear as silver and as perfect in articulation as the notes of a thrush. Suffused in the aura of this high social refinement and good breeding, it was impossible for her to escape a deeper effect of it. As good habits are said to be better than good principles, so, perhaps, good manners are better than good habits. The teachings of your parents may not keep alive your New England conscience; but if you sit on a straight-back chair and repeat the words “prisms and pilgrims” forty times the devil will flee from you. And when Nancy spoke in the
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5615
Van Alstyne Fisher tones she felt the thrill of noblesse oblige to her very bones.
February 10, 2018
O.Henry was an American author who penned down several short stories which are notable for their surprise endings. I had been a fan of his works since my childhood and I desire to read all his stories. This is another of his collections which consists of many beautiful short stories. Some of which can be considered as his best works such as "the last leaf". I read the book over a long period of time few stories at a time and really enjoyed most of them. Few made me cry ,few made me smile and few left me dazed. I believe its a must-read for all those who have a thing for classic lirerature
August 25, 2021
I read this after reading a New Yorker review.
The problem with O. Henry is you have an author who could write and tell a story, but who (for financial reasons) churned out stories with the same plot device.
Still, these are entertaining sketches of life in the big city for the lowerer and middle classes in the late 1800s
The problem with O. Henry is you have an author who could write and tell a story, but who (for financial reasons) churned out stories with the same plot device.
Still, these are entertaining sketches of life in the big city for the lowerer and middle classes in the late 1800s
November 19, 2023
Хорошая история о двух штатчанках, приехавших в Нью-Йорк осуществлять американскую мечту в виде подцепления безхозного миллионера и разных стратегий осуществления этого нелёгкого дела. Действительно остроумно, что-то немного от "Джентльмены предпочитают блондинок" (т.е. В джазе только девушки советского проката).
March 23, 2019
O. Henry has been one of my favorite writers for a long time. I just completed reading this and was happy with the stories. I remember reading 'The Last Leaf' as a child and still is one my favorites story. You can read all stories online at https://thestoryhut.com/series/o-henr... :)
January 13, 2026
I still don't understand why decent writers Choose to write stories about human emotion. QED
January 15, 2023
I enjoyed all these stories in O. Henry's "The Trimmed Lamp" collection which I reviewed separately. Several stories I could not review having no listing on Goodreads. I was happy to read "The Last Leaf" finally having seen it in a movie.
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Published in 1907, this is O. Henry’s third collection and contains 24 short stories, many of which were first printed in New York periodicals.
-THE TRIMMED LAMP
-A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT
-THE RUBAIYAT OF A SCOTCH HIGHBALL
- THE PENDULUM
- TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN
-THE ASSESSOR OF SUCCESS
-THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY
-THE BADGE OF POLICEMAN O’ROON
-BRICKDUST ROW
-THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER
-VANITY AND SOME SABLES
-THE SOCIAL TRIANGLE
-THE PURPLE DRESS
-THE FOREIGN POLICY OF COMPANY 99
- THE LOST BLEND
-A HARLEM TRAGEDY
-THE GUILTY PARTY
-ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHTS
-A MIDSUMMER KNIGHT'S DREAM
-THE LAST LEAF
-THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST
-THE COUNTRY OF ELUSION
-THE FERRY OF UNFULFILMENT
-THE TALE OF A TAINTED TENNER
-ELSIE IN NEW YORK
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 5526
Published in 1907, this is O. Henry’s third collection and contains 24 short stories, many of which were first printed in New York periodicals.
-THE TRIMMED LAMP
-A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT
-THE RUBAIYAT OF A SCOTCH HIGHBALL
- THE PENDULUM
- TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN
-THE ASSESSOR OF SUCCESS
-THE BUYER FROM CACTUS CITY
-THE BADGE OF POLICEMAN O’ROON
-BRICKDUST ROW
-THE MAKING OF A NEW YORKER
-VANITY AND SOME SABLES
-THE SOCIAL TRIANGLE
-THE PURPLE DRESS
-THE FOREIGN POLICY OF COMPANY 99
- THE LOST BLEND
-A HARLEM TRAGEDY
-THE GUILTY PARTY
-ACCORDING TO THEIR LIGHTS
-A MIDSUMMER KNIGHT'S DREAM
-THE LAST LEAF
-THE COUNT AND THE WEDDING GUEST
-THE COUNTRY OF ELUSION
-THE FERRY OF UNFULFILMENT
-THE TALE OF A TAINTED TENNER
-ELSIE IN NEW YORK
February 24, 2022
The Trimmed Lamp is a collection of 25 short stories by O. Henry, set in New York city. There are some extremely well written and entertaining stories like The Pendulum, Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen, According to their Lights and The Last Leaf. This collection also contains some thought provoking stories like A Harlem Tragedy, "The Guilty Party" and Elsie in New York. Since this set of stories was written after The Four Million, the comparison is inevitable. The short stories in The Four Million were much better, since The Trimmed Lamp is a mixed bag with some boring stories sprinkled amidst the rest unlike the former. The stories are quick and easy to read but most of the stories lack the punch and humor that one might expect after reading some of the classics produced by this author.
November 11, 2011
I didn't like these stories nearly as much as the ones in O. Henry's The Four Million. In O. Henry's style they have romance, twist endings, and humorous observations about human nature, but something made them less interesting than those in the other book. However, I liked a few stories: The Pendulum, A Harlem Tragedy, The Last Leaf, and The Tale of a Tainted Tenner.
I listened to the free Librivox audiobook.
I listened to the free Librivox audiobook.
June 19, 2021
This book was going to be a two stars 'just okay' review, but then it started to be better. Some of the stories were more like essays, the contemplations of the author dominated the plot. Then there are some where the well known style of Henry's storytelling was back with an admirable wealth of imagination.
The ones I liked are: The Trimmed Lamp. The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball. Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen. The Buyers from Cactus City. The Badge of Policeman O’roon. Vanity and Some Sables. The Purple Dress. The Lost Blend. A Harlem Tragedy (hilarious). The Last Leaf (goosebumps). The Count and the Wedding Guest.
The ones I liked are: The Trimmed Lamp. The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball. Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen. The Buyers from Cactus City. The Badge of Policeman O’roon. Vanity and Some Sables. The Purple Dress. The Lost Blend. A Harlem Tragedy (hilarious). The Last Leaf (goosebumps). The Count and the Wedding Guest.
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June 10, 2012O. Henry is, in my opinion, one of the most enjoyable authors America has produced. His stories are generally not especially deep and their literary importance is questionable, but for the pure joy of the story, there are few who write better. He can turn a phrase and shape a story in ways that shift from clever to funny to tearfully poignant in a moment. I've read all the stories in this book several times and I never get bored of them.
December 21, 2013
November 25, 2013 SJP Book Club Selection. We read and discussed O. Henry's characteristically ironic story, "Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen." Although not as moving as his more famous "The Gift of the Magi," this story does address some thought-provoking themes about wealth and charity, holiday traditions and gluttony.
March 6, 2017
It was really good. Well...the ending was, but the story was more or less dragged up. It could have concluded way before, however it was not just an other surprise ending story, but a moralistic kind of story. Though its monistic touch made the story far more predictable, but still a good 3 out of 5 start story I'd say.
June 6, 2014
It's good, enjoyable writing. It feels like a friend is telling me these stories, O. Henry's got such a personable voice. I especially liked "Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen" and "A Midsimmer Knight's Dream", and I loved "The Last Leaf".
August 31, 2015
amazing as always....
Well this is a classic and those who like classic stories it is a good read. This book shows the strength of O. Henry as a short story teller. Some beautiful stories are complied in this book .
Well this is a classic and those who like classic stories it is a good read. This book shows the strength of O. Henry as a short story teller. Some beautiful stories are complied in this book .
January 17, 2020
Another collection by the witty, warm-hearted writer that’s closest to my own style. I wish there was still a market for stories like these that are more reflective of the human condition than much of contemporary literature.
January 3, 2013
I love O. Henry. End of story.
October 17, 2014
Some of the stories were wonderful, but some were not so good.
January 10, 2016
The rating is 2.5
It is nice-ish. Definitely not as good as his first two books. This one has the famous "The Last Leaf" story.
I may not be coming back to O Henry for a while...
It is nice-ish. Definitely not as good as his first two books. This one has the famous "The Last Leaf" story.
I may not be coming back to O Henry for a while...
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