Customer Reviews

The Complete Works of O. Henry

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am not sure if the reviewer who complained about the clarity was looking at a previous version, but the one I just downloaded looks great. Better yet the master table of contents lists the various collections of O Henry's work. Clicking on a collection takes you to a clickable table of contents for the collection. This makes navigation very easy for a "complete works" anthology. If you like O Henry, this is well worth owning.

A hundred years ago when I went to school, "The ransom of Red Chief" was REQUIRED (gag me with a spoon!) reading.

I was an avid reading convert from then on.

This book is full of great stories (The Octopus Marooned, The Princess and the Puma, ...)and neat phrases ("He was the kind of guy that if he saw a dollar in another man's hand, he would take it as a personal insult, if he couldn't get it any other way." "He was as busy as a one armed paper hanger with the nettle rash.")

Do yourself a favor. Allow the Grand Master of the Short Story to fill your empty hours with pure delight.

O'Henry wrote terrific short stories and he was noted for his twist(unexpected)
endings.
Fun read and you can read a whole story in short while since they are all short stories.
Two stories I loved: The Cabellero's Way(the famous movies and TV series the Cisco Kid was based on this only you will see that they took huge liberties with the character in the screen versions. The short story is far better. And The Ransom of Red Chief; about a horrendous child that is kidnapped. Only he is so aggravating that the story has unexpected results(very funny).

The titles listed in this collection in the table of contents are each the title of 1 book, click on the title and you then get a listing of the stories in that "book". For instance, "Heart of the West" is a collection of stories, including one of my favorites "the Cabrellero's Way" which introduces the Cisco Kid, a very unheroic character. You will find "the Ransom of Red Chief" in "The Boy Scout's Book of Stories" which also has other shorts by some famous writers, including Twain's famous "The Jumping Frog", that O. Henry edited for that "book". I am writing this because of all those reviewers that complained of not getting what they thought they'd get in this Kindle collection. All his stuff is included in this collection. Just click on a title in the Table of Contents, then pick a story listed in that "book's" table of content and start reading.

O. Henry was one of my father's favorite writers and he loved to read these stories to us. One entire bookshelf was just O. Henry. When I read the review that listed the titles in this collection it made me smile, there were all the titles of the books that I grew up with. I have no complaints about the quality of the transfer to the Kindle format either. I cannot believe that this collection was practically free! Folks, that old set of my Dad's sold for several hundred dollars years ago (not my doing) so how can you pass up a deal like this?

This is table of contents from Product description:

Heart of the West
Cabbages and Kings
The Four Million
The Gentle Grafter
The Gift of the Magi
Options
Roads of Destiny
Rolling Stones
Strictly Business More Stories of the Four Million
Sixes and Sevens
The Trimmed Lamp & Other Stories
The Voice of the City
Waifs and Strays
Whirligigs
The Boy Scouts Book of Stories

And those are the stories I was looking for very much.

Here is the table of contents from what Amazon downloaded to my Kindle:

Hearts And Crosses
The Ransom of Mack
Telemachus, Friend
The Handbook of Hymen
The Pimienta Pancakes
Seats of the Haughty
Hygeia at the Solito
An Afternoon Miracle
The Higher Abdication
Cupid a la Carte
The Caballero's Way
The Sphinx Apple
The Missing Chord
A Call Loan
The Princess and The Puma
The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson
Christmas by Injunction
A Chaparral Prince
The Reformation of Calliope

There in no single title that match.

This is absolutely unacceptable!

I should say I really regretted buying this book. The pages presented poor typography. All the pages were left-aligned, looking like a badly formatted windows txt file! You have no feeling of reading a book at all.

Besides, the active table is not really wise, with some mistakes that will lead you to a wrong page or a blank page.

The pages look as if they are photocopied. The print is smeared and nearly illegible in places.

When I order "The Complete Works of O'Henry I expect the "complete works". Disappointed that The Ransom of Red Chief and The Gift of the Magi were not included.

This was an excellent purchase; I gave it as a Christmas gift to my daughter. It arrived promptly in great condition - and looks almost new despite being a used book. This seller exceeded my expectations.