Short Stories – Cabbages and Kings

This post is part of a year-long series about short stories.  Read about my “Year of the Short Story” HERE.

Cabbages and Kings by O. Henry (1904) – A collection of short stories about the same place (the fictional “banana republic” of Anchuria) and people (mostly expatriate Americans living or visiting there).  It is a brilliant and cutting look at Americans at the height of our colonial empire-building phase.  Arrogant and lacking the self-awareness to understand that about themselves, the characters wander through Anchuria as if they exist on a different plane from those around them.

O. Henry is the pen name of William Sydney Porter.  He is best known to most of us as the author of “The Gift of the Magi”, the wonderful Christmas romance story of two young newlyweds who give up what they most treasure to give a special gift to their spouse.

Porter’s life is fascinating.  A successful newspaper writer but also a convicted bank embezzler.  He served time for the crime, lost his wife to tuberculosis, lived briefly in Pittsburgh (probably only important to me, I know!) and wrote hundreds of short stories.  He would eventually be overcome by the ravages of alcoholism and diabetes and die at age 48.  His work often has surprise endings. He was much beloved by his readers and often panned by the critics.    The stories in this collection make me want to read more.

The stories are:

The Proem: By the Carpenter^[2]

• 1. “Fox-in-the-Morning”
  2. The Lotus and the Bottle
  3. Smith
  4. Caught
  5. Cupid’s Exile Number Two
  6. The Phonograph and the Graft
  7. Money Maze
  8. The Admiral
  9. The Flag Paramount
  10. The Shamrock and the Palm
  11. The Remnants of the Code
  12. Shoes
  13. Ships
  14. Masters of Arts
  15. Dicky
  16. Rouge et Noir
  17. Two Recalls
  18. The Vitagraphoscope

Like “The Suicide Club” by Robert Louis Stevenson (whichI wrote about earlier), this is a different kind of book.  Neither pure novel nor a traditional short story collection, it is an amazing bunch of stories.  The Americans here are not unlikable at the surface and generally, they mean no harm.  Porter based the stories on the time he spent in Honduras while evading trial for the bank fraud.  He is credited with popularizing the term “banana republic”, meaning a small country with profound social stratification and undue influence of multi-national corporations and larger countries in the local politics.

Another great collection of short stories to add to your list!