THE STORIES OF O HENRY are in the great tradition of American short story writing that stretches from Irving and Poe through to Damon Runyon and even P J O’Rourke. In all, Henry wrote two hundred and seventy stories, and they consist of a rich mixture of semi-realism, sentiment and surprise endings. Though he is frequently thought of as a ’funny’ writer, O Henry was, like Runyon,capable of addressing the darker side of life - A Municipal Report and The Furnished Room are two such stories. At the same time, his genius for comic invention flows through the pages of this book,exemplified by the epicurean exchange in Hostages to Momus between the narrator and Caligula Polk.

This collection of 100 of O Henry’s finest stories is a showcase for the sheer variety of one of America’s best and best-loved short story writers.

The variety of the stories is amazing; O Henry is as at home describing life south of the Rio Grande as he is chronicling the activities and concerns of ’the four million’ ordinary citizens who inhabited turn--of-the-century New York.They are marked by coincidence and surprise endings as well as the compassion and high humour that have made O Henry’s stories popular for the last century.

The Gift of the Magi

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

Between Rounds

The Skylight Room

A Service of Love

The Coming-out of Maggie

The Cop and the Anthem

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

The Love-philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

Mammon and the Archer

Springtime a la Carte

From the Cabby’s Seat

An Unfinished Story

Sisters of the Golden Circle

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Furnished Room

The Brief Debut of Tildy

Hearts and Crosses

Telemachus, Friend

The Handbook of Hymen

The Trimmed Lamp

The Pendulum

The Assessor of Success

The Buyer from Cactus City

The Badge of Policeman O’Roon

Briekdust Row

The Making of a New Yorker

Vanity and some Sables

The Social Triangle

The Lost Blend

A Harlem Tragedy

’The Guilty Party’

The Last Leaf

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

The Hand that Riles the World

The Exact Science of Matrimony

Conscience in Art

The Man Higher Up

A Tempered Wind

Hostages to Momus

The Ethics of Pig

Strictly Business

The Day Resurgent

The Fifth Wheel

The Poet and the Peasant

The Thing’s the Play

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Municipal Report

Compliments of the Season

Proof of the Pudding

Past One atRooney’s

’The Rose of Dixie’

The Third Ingredient

Thimble, Thimble

Buried Treasure

The Moment of Victory

The Head-Hunter

The Last of the Troubadours

The Sleuths

Witches’ Loaves

Holding up a Train

Ulysses and the Dogman

At Arms with Morpheus

A Ghost of a Chance

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

The Door of Unrest

The Duplicity of Hargreaves

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Law and Order

Transformation of Martin Burney

Roads of Destiny

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Enchanted Profile

’Next to Reading Matter’

A Double-dyed Deceiver

The Passing of Black Eagle

A Retrieved Reformation

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

Two Renegades

A Lickpenny Lover

Dougherty’s Eye-opener

’Little Speck in Garnered Fruit’

While the Auto Waits

A Comedy in Rubber

One Thousand Dollars

The Shocks of Doom

Nemesis and the Candy Man

The Memento

The Hypotheses of Failure

Calloway’s Code

’Girl’

A Technical Error

A Blackjack Bargainer

Madame Bo-Peep of the Ranches

A Ruler of Men

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Marionettes

The Dream