themaggiemch's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
Normally, I am not the biggest enjoyer of anthologies. Short stories are rarely long/interesting enough to hold my attention, and I find myself skimming or even abandoning the book. However, Henry's stories were refreshingly different.
Almost every story had an intriguing premise that kept me hooked until the end, which usually took an ironic twist. My favorites were "The Last Leaf", "Roads of Destiny", and of course, the classic "Gift of the Magi".
Out of all of the anthologies I've read in the past 12 months, this has by far been the most enjoyable, and it would be a true pleasure to read more of Henry's works.
Almost every story had an intriguing premise that kept me hooked until the end, which usually took an ironic twist. My favorites were "The Last Leaf", "Roads of Destiny", and of course, the classic "Gift of the Magi".
Out of all of the anthologies I've read in the past 12 months, this has by far been the most enjoyable, and it would be a true pleasure to read more of Henry's works.
whitneydrew's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed about half of the short stories included. The other half were duds in my opinion.
davybaby's review against another edition
3.0
I don't know if you can really consider these classics, but I did, so there you have it.
I didn't read all of them, but I read a few and they were fun. "The Ransom of Red Chief" was my favorite, which had a Twainian (ooh!) boyish country humor to it that was endearing.
I didn't read all of them, but I read a few and they were fun. "The Ransom of Red Chief" was my favorite, which had a Twainian (ooh!) boyish country humor to it that was endearing.
lauramcc7's review against another edition
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Racial slurs, Racism, and Domestic abuse
nataliya_x's review against another edition
5.0
"Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other."The writers of short stories, the bar has been set. And it's really high. I've known it since I was about eight or nine, when my mother (bless the heart of the amazing literature teacher I have the privilege to be descended from!) slipped me a nondescript brown-cover book opened to the page with the title 'The Gift of the Magi'.
I read the story, and then the rest of a hundred or so in that little brown book, and the impossible standard for all the writers of short fiction has been firmly set in my stubborn over-cluttered brain.
This bar was really set over a hundred years ago by a certain O.Henry, a prolific New York magazine writer (and, of course, former rancher, bank teller, fugitive and convicted criminal, and a man whose last words, the legend has it, were, "Pull up the shades so I can see New York. I don't want to go home in the dark") who was easily cranking out a story or two a week - and yet somehow despite the rush and demand and the copious amounts of alcohol was able to create sketches and snippets of the life of everyday people that carried that *something* for which a regular typewriter/keyboard word-churner would probably have given a limb or two without the slightest hesitation.
It's been over a hundred years since these stories were published, and the population of New York has doubled since the days of [b:The Four Million|2168736|The Four Million|O. Henry|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348410169s/2168736.jpg|867310], and yet O.Henry's writing has not aged, has not become obscure or irrelevant or any other of the disparaging adjectives one can apply to fiction.
The are many reasons why these stories remained timelessly readable and relevant. For instance, the conversational, gently playful but yet kind tone that somehow manages to teeter just on the verge of irony. The humor that shines in every page, in every sentence. The we-came-to-expect-it twist at the end of every story - still taking the reader by surprise, even when we think we got this O.Henry twist thingy down. The humorous and meandering introductions to the stories that may or may not have direct relationship to the actual storyline, but nevertheless are essential to it. The amazing amount of subtle and gentle and yet very apt characterization that manages to happen in the stories that are just a few pages long.
But I think the main reason for the timelessness is that people essentially have not changed over the century.
"Of course there are two sides to the question. Let us look at the other. We often hear "shop-girls" spoken of. No such persons exist. There are girls who work in shops. They make their living that way. But why turn their occupation into an adjective? Let us be fair. We do not refer to the girls who live on Fifth Avenue as "marriage-girls."O.Henry wrote about people; the everyday 'little people', mostly those of New York (even though there will be a fair few set in the West and the South of the US, and an entire collection in a 'banana republic' of South America). Those who were usually beneath the notice of the 'great and powerful' of this world.
According to the 'connoisseur' of the 'cream of society' of that time Ward McAllister, there were only about four hundred people in New York who mattered (the list lives on, despite its idiocy - think of Forbes 400, for example). According to O.Henry, there were a few more - four million, to be exact, the entire population of the metropolis at the time.The stories focus on the moments in life of the 'four million', always keeping their unique individuality in focus and not the study of them as a group. We see the shop girls, and struggling clerks, cabbies, small-time crooks, residents of furnished rooms or cheap furnished apartments, artists, secretaries, and even a likely few of the 'four hundred' in their run-ins with the remaining 3,999,600, those who "came to the big city to find work because there was not enough to eat at their homes to go around."
As the introduction to his best-known collection 'The Four Million' simply states:
"Not very long ago some one invented the assertion that there were only "Four Hundred" people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen--the census taker--and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the "Four Million."
"Dulcie lived in a furnished room. There is this difference between a furnished room and a boarding-house. In a furnished room, other people do not know it when you go hungry."Most of the stories are the simple snippets of life - be it in a big city or on a remote ranch. The everyday troubles and pleasures. Many of them are love stories - not the romance stories kind of love but the kind that springs to life in the tiny furnished apartments after long hours of low-paid work which still does not manage to leech the humanity of those who are not the society's cream:
"One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.Our world is a constant contrast of haves and have nots, and have nots have to try very hard just to stay afloat, just to get something out of life that is not very gentle to them. The differences between the wealthy and the poor are highlighted - but the decision of what to do with the highlights is left up to you. O.Henry does not preach; he just provides a gentle voice to those who usually don't get it.
[...]
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim."
"During her first year in the store, Dulcie was paid five dollars per week. It would be instructive to know how she lived on that amount. Don't care? Very well; probably you are interested in larger amounts. Six dollars is a larger amount. I will tell you how she lived on six dollars per week.And yet the stories are not written to be the social critique, to pursue an agenda, to stir up anger. They seem to be written just to give the voice to the 3,999,600 that otherwise just quietly go about their lives in the streets of a big city or the fields of the West, keeping their dignity, and finding little pleasures in life, and asking for no condescending pity, and just being people.
[...]
For the room, Dulcie paid two dollars per week. On week-days her breakfast cost ten cents; she made coffee and cooked an egg over the gaslight while she was dressing. On Sunday mornings she feasted royally on veal chops and pineapple fritters at "Billy's" restaurant, at a cost of twenty-five cents—and tipped the waitress ten cents. New York presents so many temptations for one to run into extravagance. She had her lunches in the department-store restaurant at a cost of sixty cents for the week; dinners were $1.05. The evening papers—show me a New Yorker going without his daily paper!—came to six cents; and two Sunday papers—one for the personal column and the other to read—were ten cents. The total amounts to $4.76. Now, one has to buy clothes, and—
I give it up. I hear of wonderful bargains in fabrics, and of miracles performed with needle and thread; but I am in doubt. I hold my pen poised in vain when I would add to Dulcie's life some of those joys that belong to woman by virtue of all the unwritten, sacred, natural, inactive ordinances of the equity of heaven. Twice she had been to Coney Island and had ridden the hobby-horses. 'Tis a weary thing to count your pleasures by summers instead of by hours."
You don't need to write angry speeches about social injustices when you can just leave your reader with this:
"As I said before, I dreamed that I was standing near a crowd of prosperous-looking angels, and a policeman took me by the wing and asked if I belonged with them.--------
"Who are they?" I asked.
"Why," said he, "they are the men who hired working-girls, and paid 'em five or six dollars a week to live on. Are you one of the bunch?"
"Not on your immortality," said I. "I'm only the fellow that set fire to an orphan asylum, and murdered a blind man for his pennies."
It was an amazing read when I was a child, and remained such through the years. The bar set high back then still holds. And what I found interesting was that the same stories that struck me the most as a child had the same impact on me, the proud owner of about 50 gray hairs. They are here, and I encourage you to take a look, and revisit the magic of O.Henry - or maybe discover it for the very first time:
The Gift of the Magi
The Last Leaf
An Unfinished Story
The Furnished Room
The Trimmed Lamp
While the Auto Waits
aspygirlsmom_1995's review against another edition
emotional
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
stoness2112's review against another edition
The stories had a whimsical quality in their writing style within some variance of prose but ultimately they were all written a very long time ago by a cis, straight white man (as far as we know) and that felt reflected in the writing style, which I could not sustain for hundreds of pages. Perhaps it reflects on memore and just my personal taste but I'm saturated in diverse modern writing these days which I prefer. Also it was due back at the library and if that happens and I'm not called to ignore it and keep it past due which I am with many others, I take that as a sign of my disinterest.
holtfan's review against another edition
4.0
Dearest Reader,
It is with the greatest pleasure I bring to your attention one of the most excellent writer of the nineteen and twentieth centuries, O. Henry. In his time, O. Henry wrote over six hundred short stories that continue to delight readers to this day. His work is entirely memorable, once you have read “The Ransom of Red Chief” or “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen”, you will never forget them. The writing is generally humorous, with a profound awareness of social ills.
Some may find the stories pointless; I think this is to be expected. He writes about ‘real life’, but in such a way as to make it fascinating. O. Henry creates awareness about our culture even while making fun of it. How can that be, you might ask, when O. Henry was writing to a completely different generation of people? Well, that is just part of the fun! We might not live in an era of shop-girls and cabbie horses, but human nature is still the same and that is exactly what O. Henry writes about. He encourages one to come in, sit down, and simply enjoy. Read with tongue in cheek, a dose of humor, and willingness for awareness, you are sure to enjoy!
One of my favorite stories is “The Cop and the Anthem.” “Soapy”, as the main character is known, is an all-around loafer who’s goal is to get sent to prison for the winter months. They provide warmth, food, and in his mind, the perfect winter retreat. Unfortunately, he can’t seem to get arrested! No matter what he does, it doesn’t work. He breaks a window, eats without paying, even attempts to abduct a woman, but nothing works! Finally, as he walks past a church, he experiences a “sudden and wonderful change in his soul.” He decides to completely turn his life around, get a job, and become a productive man of society. At that moment a police officer wanders over and arrests him for loafing. He is sentenced to jail for the winter months!
Not all of his works are humorous, such as “The Unfinished Story” or the ever depressing, “Gift of the Magi.” This does not mean they are bad. They tend to express more awareness of human life and rely more on the bitter-sweet then funny. To say that one is better than the other is beyond me, all of O. Henry is excellent.
I hope you will read and enjoy as much as I.
Yours Truly,
It is with the greatest pleasure I bring to your attention one of the most excellent writer of the nineteen and twentieth centuries, O. Henry. In his time, O. Henry wrote over six hundred short stories that continue to delight readers to this day. His work is entirely memorable, once you have read “The Ransom of Red Chief” or “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen”, you will never forget them. The writing is generally humorous, with a profound awareness of social ills.
Some may find the stories pointless; I think this is to be expected. He writes about ‘real life’, but in such a way as to make it fascinating. O. Henry creates awareness about our culture even while making fun of it. How can that be, you might ask, when O. Henry was writing to a completely different generation of people? Well, that is just part of the fun! We might not live in an era of shop-girls and cabbie horses, but human nature is still the same and that is exactly what O. Henry writes about. He encourages one to come in, sit down, and simply enjoy. Read with tongue in cheek, a dose of humor, and willingness for awareness, you are sure to enjoy!
One of my favorite stories is “The Cop and the Anthem.” “Soapy”, as the main character is known, is an all-around loafer who’s goal is to get sent to prison for the winter months. They provide warmth, food, and in his mind, the perfect winter retreat. Unfortunately, he can’t seem to get arrested! No matter what he does, it doesn’t work. He breaks a window, eats without paying, even attempts to abduct a woman, but nothing works! Finally, as he walks past a church, he experiences a “sudden and wonderful change in his soul.” He decides to completely turn his life around, get a job, and become a productive man of society. At that moment a police officer wanders over and arrests him for loafing. He is sentenced to jail for the winter months!
Not all of his works are humorous, such as “The Unfinished Story” or the ever depressing, “Gift of the Magi.” This does not mean they are bad. They tend to express more awareness of human life and rely more on the bitter-sweet then funny. To say that one is better than the other is beyond me, all of O. Henry is excellent.
I hope you will read and enjoy as much as I.
Yours Truly,
bibliophile_me's review against another edition
5.0
Best short story collection one could have, or rather needs. The thief was one story that I read in school and fell in love with O Henry, and his writing never disappointed me. I would like to believe he was the one who inspired all twists and turns of plots across Hollywood and Bollywood!