O. Henry

Starred review from April 15, 2021
A treasure vault of work by a master of the short story form. Even in the very early work that Yagoda collects in this thick volume, Henry (ne William Sydney Porter) reveals himself to be an assured if not always trustworthy narrator who seems to be having a great deal of fun while spinning yarns. Evident early on is his mistrust of institutions and bureaucracy: "There is--or was, for their day is now over--a class of land speculators commonly called land sharks, unscrupulous and greedy, who have left their trail in every department of this office," he writes of the government agency in charge of land patents. A few pages later, he unfolds a rather morbid and very brief story in which a dying woman unwittingly provides the material for a humor columnist, seemingly her husband, holding her hand as he tries to write. Her dying words, "Mother, mother!" provide the final bit of needed copy: "The man wrote quickly: 'A woman generally likes her husband's mother-in-law the best of all his relatives.' " Yagoda's well-selected anthology follows Henry through all his phases, from Texas bank clerk to fugitive (on account of embezzlement) in Honduras, federal prisoner, and, finally, reasonably successful New Yorker. The volume's highlight, of course, is Henry's best-known and much-loved story, "The Ransom of Red Chief," in which two con men kidnap a "boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train," who makes their lives a bit of hell on Earth. Most of the stories, "Red Chief" foremost among them, read as if freshly written, although there are a few dated ethnic categorizations and outright slurs. Overall, though, the volume provides ample evidence for why one of American literature's most eminent literary awards should be named for the author. Essential for students of the short story and for fans of Henry's work.

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