Selected Stories
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Eighty short stories by a master of the genre O. Henry's comic eye and unique, ironic approach to life's realities are unmatched. These stories—about con men and tricksters and "innocent" deceivers, about fate, luck, and coincidence—have delighted generations of readers. Set in New York and the West, in Central America and the South, they demonstrate O. Henry's mastery of speech and place, and highlight his appreciation of life's quirks. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Author O. Henry has become iconic, associated in people's minds with the idea of a trick ending in short stories, so much that he has had a preeminent award in short story writing named after him.
He also lived most of his short life in Texas.
For these reasons, I was curious enough about him to choose a book of his short stories for my Classics Club list.
I listened to an audio of much of the book. I also read many of the most well-known stories again, including “The Last Leaf” and “The Gift of the Magi.”
My takeaway? O. Henry was a master of the short story, taking the reader instantly deep into the lives of characters in only a few pages. He, like no other, saw the sometimes humorous-often disconcerting-always true paradoxes of life and he peopled his stories with folks characterized by these paradoxes, and he related his tales brimming with these paradoxes.
