Fiction · 1910
Whirligigs
Twenty-four stories range across O. Henry's own favorite ground — con men, kidnappers, and ordinary strivers in the American South, the West, and the streets of New York — turning on the twist endings that made him one of the most popular short-story writers of his time, among them "The Ransom of Red Chief," his most widely reprinted story.
O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) published Whirligigs in 1910, the year of his death, gathering stories that had already appeared individually in magazines.
This Bibliomancer edition presents the complete text.
Contents
- I — The World and the Door
- II — The Theory and the Hound
- III — The Hypotheses of Failure
- IV — Calloway’s Code
- V — A Matter of Mean Elevation
- VI — “Girl”
- VII — Sociology in Serge and Straw
- VIII — The Ransom of Red Chief
- IX — The Marry Month of May
- X — A Technical Error
- XI — Suite Homes and Their Romance
- XII — The Whirligig of Life
- XIII — A Sacrifice Hit
- XIV — The Roads We Take
- XV — A Blackjack Bargainer
- XVI — The Song and the Sergeant
- XVII — One Dollar’s Worth
- XVIII — A Newspaper Story
- XIX — Tommy’s Burglar
- XX — A Chaparral Christmas Gift
- XXI — A Little Local Colour
- XXII — Georgia’s Ruling
- XXIII — Blind Man’s Holiday
- XXIV — Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
Source mind
About the author
1862–1910 · Victorian
O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862–1910), born in Greensboro, North Carolina, who worked as a pharmacist, ranch hand, bank teller, and draftsman before an 1894 audit of the Austin bank where he had worked found funds missing; he fled to Honduras, returned when his wife fell fatally ill, and was convicted of embezzlement in 1897, serving over three years in the Ohio Penitentiary. There, writing to support his young daughter, he began publishing short stories under pseudonyms, settling on "O. Henry" upon his 1901 release. Moving to New York in 1902, he wrote prolifically for newspapers and magazines — at his peak producing a story a week — building a body of work, including The Four Million (1906), Heart of the West (1907), and The Voice of the City (1908), known for its ironic coincidences and twist endings, and for finding sympathetic drama in the lives of ordinary New Yorkers. Heavy drinking and declining health marked his last years; he died in New York at forty-seven.
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