JC Elkins O. Henry Literary Discussion Group

10/04/2025

And then, as Kernan's ready finger kept the button and the waiter working, his weak point-a tremendous vanity and arrogant egotism, began to show itself. He recounted story after story of his successful plunderings, ingenious plots and infamous transgressions until Woods, with all his familiarity with evil-doers, felt growing within him a cold abhorrence toward the utterly vicious man who had once been his benefactor.
- O. Henry, The Clarion Call

The Clarion Call
Friday October 10, 2025 1 PM CDT

via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87330388951

09/26/2025

All over the city the cries were starting up, keen and sonorous, heralding the chances that the slip ping of one cogwheel in the machinery of time had made; apportioning to the sleepers while they lay at the mercy of fate, the vengeance, profit, grief, reward and doom that the new figure in the calendar had brought them. Shrill and yet plaintive were the cries, as if the young voices grieved that so much evil and so little good was in their irresponsible hands. Thus echoed in the streets of the helpless city the transmission of the latest decrees of the gods, the cries of the newsboys— the Clarion Call of the Press.
- O. Henry, The Clarion Call

The Clarion Call
Friday October 10, 2025 1 PM CDT

via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87330388951

09/23/2025

The Clarion Call
Friday October 10, 2025 1 PM CDT

via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87330388951

09/11/2025

"We opened the door easy, and then stampeded for the front. Part of the gang was lined up at the bar; part of 'em was passing over the drinks, and two or three was peeping out the door and window and taking shots at the marshal's crowd. The room was so full of smoke we got half-way to the front door before they noticed us. Then I heard Berry Trimble's voice somewhere yell out:
"'How'd that Buck Caperton get in here?' and he skinned the side of my neck with a bullet. I reckon he felt bad over that miss, for Berry's the best shot south of the Southern Pacific Railroad. But the smoke in the saloon was some too thick for good shooting.
"Me and Perry smashed over two of the gang with our table legs, which didn't miss like the guns did, and as we run out the door I grabbed a Wi******er from a fellow who was watching the outside, and I turned and regulated the account of Mr. Berry."
- O. Henry, The Lonesome Road

The Lonesome Road
Friday September 12, 2025 1 PM CDT
O. Henry Museum

09/08/2025

"There was the Trimble gang—ten of 'em—the worst outfit of desperadoes and horse-thieves in Texas, coming up the street shooting right and left. They was coming right straight for the Gray Mule. Then they got past the range of my sight, but we heard 'em ride up to the front door, and then they socked the place full of lead. We heard the big looking-glass behind the bar knocked all to pieces and the bottles crashing. We could see Gotch-eared Mike in his apron running across the plaza like a coyote, with the bullets puffing up dust all around him. Then the gang went to work in the saloon, drinking what they wanted and smashing what they didn't."
- O. Henry, The Lonesome Road
The Lonesome Road
Friday September 12. 2025 1 PM CDT
O. Henry Museum

09/06/2025

Judge Trueman E. O'Quinn, Jenny Lind Porter, and Howard Sartin looking at an O. Henry portrait on exhibit in 1978. Judge Trueman E. O'Quinn donated several O. Henry Resources found at the Austin History Center, as well as Jenny Lind Porter who was a distant relative of writer William Sydney Porter.

09/05/2025

"Mr. Valentine's New Profession" originally appeared in London Magazine for September 1903. It is O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation" under a new title. The orignal title, when it first appeared in Cosmopolitian for April 1903, was "A Retrieved Reform."
The story features in an article of the July 1916 issue of Current Opinion, "O. Henry Begins To Emerge As An International Figure In Literature," which we will read and discuss along with our September story "The Lonesome Road", as well as a second O. Henry article with the intriguing title, "The Pretended O. Henry."

The Lonesome Road
Friday September 12, 2025 1 PM CDT
O. Henry Museum

08/15/2025

Slayton had hung about the editorial offices of all the magazines so persistently that he was acquainted with the inner workings of every one in Gotham.
He knew not only that the editor of the Hearthstone handed his MSS. around among different types of people for reading, but that the stories of sentimental love-interest went to Miss Puffkin, the editor’s stenographer. Another of the editor’s peculiar customs was to conceal invariably the name of the writer from his readers of MSS. so that a glittering name might not influence the sincerity of their reports.
O. Henry, A Sacrifice Hit

A Sacrifice Hit
Friday August 15, 2025 1 PM CDT
O. Henry Museum

08/13/2025

Not officially out until next month, but if your order it from the publisher (Paul Dry Books), it is already shipping. Got my copy today, and am looking forward to reading it.

08/10/2025

The central idea and keynote of “Love Is All” was love at
first sight—the enrapturing, irresistible, soul thrilling feeling that compels a man or a woman to recognize his or her spirit-mate as soon as heart speaks to heart. Suppose he should impress this
divine truth upon Miss Puffkin personally!—would she not surely indorse her new and rapturous sensations by recommending highly to the editor of the Hearthstone the novelette “Love Is All”?
- O. Henry, A Sacrifice Hit
A Sacrifice Hit
Friday August 15, 2025 1 PM CDT
O. Henry Museum

08/08/2025

Slayton made “Love Is All” the effort of his life. He gave it six months of the best work of his heart and brain. It was a pure love-story, fine, elevated, romantic, passionate—a prose poem that set the divine blessing of love (I am transposing from the manuscript) high above all earthly gifts and honours, and listed it in the catalogue of heaven’s choicest rewards.
- O. Henry, A Sacrifice Hit
A Sacrifice Hit
Friday August 15, 2025 1 PM CDT
O. Henry Museum

08/05/2025

An exciting new O. Henry book coming soon (next month)!

Ben Yagoda, editor of O. Henry 101 Stories, is the author of Alias O. Henry, a novel that vividly imagines O. Henry’s life, as well as the events that could have inspired his most famous tales.

279-page paperback / 5.5" x 8.5" / ISBN 9781589882065Publication Date: 9/16/2025 (now shipping)O. Henry, who may be best remembered for his short story “The Gift of the Magi,” was a mysterious figure, as inventive with the details of his own life as he was in his fiction. In Alias O. Henry, Ben ...