O’Henry the numero uno master story teller is an author who needs no introduction. His stories have been put together into one intensive collection titled “The Selected works of O’Henry” . The author’s colorful past included being sentenced to prison for embezzling money, after which he started writing short stories to support his daughter. On his release from prison, he changed his name from William Sydney Porter to O’Henry.
There are more than two hundred stories in this collection set in the earlier part of the century in olden America. The common theme running in his works is that of a surprising, ironic twist at the end of every story. The surprise ending is the trademark of a classic O’Henry tale and the final twist in every story will bewilder you to no end. Some of the most beautiful stories from this collection have already been made into serials and dramas.
The most famous amongst all of them is the tale of ultimate sacrifice- The Gifts of the Magi. The recently released movie ‘Raincoat’ was loosely based on this particular tale. In fact I do remember that ‘The last leaf’ story was adapted into an episode of “Ek Kahani” which was telecast on DD. The last leaf discussed how a diseased young girl’s senseless delusions were linked to a creeper growing outside her house. Her belief that when the last leaf would fall off the creeper, her life would also end, forces her best friend to do some damage control before it’s too late.
In school, one of my favorites was this very bittersweet story, ‘After twenty years’ -an O’Henry tale that was a part of our English lessons. The plot was set in the pre-decided meeting of two friends at a corner of the street, after twenty years and the surprising changes that have happened to the two friends in the long period of time. The twist at the end of this story was so bizarre yet no one can see it coming.
Most of the tales spun by the author make use of typical human behavior. The stories start off slowly and as soon as the ambience is set, the readers are then shown an altogether different side of the characters. Mind you that the language used by the author does take some time in getting used to, but once that happens reading is a breeze thereafter. Once you read some of his work, you are bound to get addicted.
Amongst all the stories, the ones that I personally liked were ‘The last leaf’, ‘The point of the story’, ‘After twenty years’, ‘The Cactus’ to cite a few. One of his famous works includes the “The Ransom of Red Chief”, in which the kidnappers end up paying the boy’s father to take him back! For people who have not read any of the famous author’s work, you can read some of the stories at the following link: https://online-literature.com/o_henry/ Surprisingly for an amazing collection of stories, ‘The Selected works of O’Henry’ is priced rather affordably at two hundred rupees.
This is one book you can read off and on, with its set of individualistic, timeless stories that end always with a twist.