Cabbages and Kings

by O. Henry

Overview

„Cabbages and Kings” is a 1904 novel made up of interlinked short stories, written by O. Henry and set in a fictitious country. A series of stories which each explore some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy Central American town called the Republic of Anchuria while each advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another in a complex structure which slowly explicates its own background even as it painstakingly erects a town which is one of the most detailed literary creations of the period. This work is O. Henry’s first published volume and is considered to be his only novel. The plot is composed of several short stories, which were inspired by the author’s six-month stay in Honduras in the late 1890s. In this book, O. Henry coined the term „banana republic”.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788381626347
Publisher:	Ktoczyta.pl
Publication date:	08/12/2018
Sold by:	Libreka GmbH
Format:	eBook
Pages:	204
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	6 Years

About the Author

O. Henry (1862-1910) was an American short story writer. Born and raised in North Carolina, O. Henry—whose real name was William Sydney Porter—moved to Texas in 1882 in search of work. He met and married Athol Estes in Austin, where he became well known as a musician and socialite. In 1888, Athol gave birth to a son who died soon after, and in 1889 a daughter named Margaret was born. Porter began working as a teller and bookkeeper at the First National Bank of Austin in 1890 and was fired four years later and accused of embezzlement. Afterward, he began publishing a satirical weekly called The Rolling Stone, but in 1895 he was arrested in Houston following an audit of his former employer. While waiting to stand trial, Henry fled to Honduras, where he lived for six months before returning to Texas to surrender himself upon hearing of Athol’s declining health. She died in July of 1897 from tuberculosis, and Porter served three years at the Ohio Penitentiary before moving to Pittsburgh to care for his daughter. While in prison, he began publishing stories under the pseudonym “O. Henry,” finding some success and launching a career that would blossom upon his release with such short stories as “The Gift of the Magi” (1905) and “The Ransom of Red Chief” (1907). He is recognized as one of America’s leading writers of short fiction, and the annual O. Henry Award—which has been won by such writers as William Faulkner, John Updike, and Eudora Welty—remains one of America’s most prestigious literary prizes.

Editorial Reviews

[Sean Pratt] speaks the vernacular as naturally as he creates the characters’ accents. [Pratt’s] agile pacing and overall breezy approach work favorably.”

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