Escape to the banana republic of Anchuria, where revolution is a business, romance is a gamble, and every story is a puzzle box waiting to spring its final surprise. Read O. Henry’s only novel completely free online.
Published in 1904, Cabbages and Kings is a hybrid: part novel, part story collection, part travelogue, part political satire. It is the only book-length work of fiction that O. Henry ever wrote, and it bears the marks of its hybrid origins. The stories were written separately, published in magazines, and then assembled into a loose narrative framework set in the fictional Central American republic of Anchuria. The result is something between a unified novel and a themed collection—a form that O. Henry himself might have called a “bag of tricks,” which is precisely what his readers loved about him.
The title comes from Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter: “Of cabbages—and kings—/ And why the sea is boiling hot—/ And whether pigs have wings.” It is a title that promises nothing and everything, a title that announces its own whimsicality. The book delivers on that promise. It offers revolutions and romances, con artists and presidents, exiles and ex-pats, all swirling through the humid, lazy, treacherous streets of Coralio, the capital of Anchuria.
On this page, you can experience O. Henry’s most sustained performance, the book that gave us the phrase “banana republic” and demonstrated that the short story master could sustain his magic across a longer form. We offer the complete 1904 text for online reading.
Book Info
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | Cabbages and Kings |
| Author | O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) |
| Year of Publication | 1904 |
| Genre | Novel, Short Story Cycle, Satire |
| Language | English |
| Legal Status | Public Domain in the U.S. |
| Format | Online Reading |
Read Cabbages and Kings Online
Feel the tropical heat and the political fever. Begin O. Henry’s Central American comedy by entering the streets of Coralio interactively below.
This preview introduces the exiled Americans and the unstable republic that hosts them. However, the full, interlocking narrative—the president who disappears, the artist who paints flags, the consul who falls in love, and the endless, intricate dance of con and counter-con—is available in the complete text for our subscribers.
A subscription unlocks this essential work of American humor and the complete stories of O. Henry. Discover the novelist who proved that a bag of tricks can also be a work of art.
About the Novel Cabbages and Kings
Cabbages and Kings is a book about Americans abroad, about the collision between Yankee ingenuity and Latin American volatility, about the strange commerce between the United States and its southern neighbors. It is also a book about storytelling, about the way narratives overlap and intersect, about the impossibility of containing a life within a single tale.
The Banana Republic
O. Henry is often credited with coining the phrase “banana republic,” and Cabbages and Kings is the book that introduced it to the world. Anchuria is a classic example: a small, tropical nation dominated by a single export crop, controlled by foreign corporations, subject to periodic revolutions that change everything and nothing. O. Henry knew this world firsthand; he had spent time in Honduras and Mexico, fleeing prosecution for embezzlement in the United States. His portrait of Anchuria is affectionate, cynical, and accurate.
The Structure
The book is composed of loosely connected stories, each featuring a different set of characters and a different angle on life in Coralio. Some stories are romantic comedies; some are political satires; some are mysteries; some are pure farce. The connections between them are often subtle—a character mentioned in passing in one story becomes the protagonist of another; an event described from one perspective is revealed from another angle later. O. Henry was experimenting with narrative form, anticipating the techniques that Faulkner and others would later develop.
The Fox in the Morning
One of the most famous stories in the collection concerns the President of Anchuria, who absconds with the national treasury and is pursued by an American adventurer. The chase involves a stolen steamer, a hidden identity, and a final twist that only O. Henry could have devised. It is a miniature masterpiece of comic suspense.
The Phonograph and the Graft
Another story follows an American inventor who brings a phonograph to Anchuria, hoping to sell it to the government. He becomes entangled in local politics, records the secret deliberations of the cabinet, and triggers a revolution. The phonograph, a symbol of American technology, becomes an instrument of Latin American chaos—a perfect O. Henry image.
The Romance of an Embezzler
Several stories trace the fortunes of an American bank clerk who has fled to Anchuria with stolen funds. He lives in fear of extradition, falls in love with a local woman, and discovers that the tropics have their own forms of justice. His story is, among other things, a veiled autobiography; O. Henry had fled to Honduras for exactly this reason.
The Cupid of the Canal
The collection’s most purely romantic story concerns an American consul who falls in love with the daughter of a local merchant. Their courtship is complicated by politics, by language, by the eternal gap between North and South. O. Henry handles it with a lightness that does not conceal his genuine tenderness.
The Trick of the Twist
O. Henry is famous for his twist endings, and Cabbages and Kings contains some of his best. But the twists here are not merely gimmicks; they are expressions of the book’s deepest theme. In Anchuria, nothing is what it seems. The president is not really the president; the revolutionary is not really a revolutionary; the American is not really an American. Identity is fluid, truth is relative, and the only certainty is that you will be surprised.
Why Read the Novel Cabbages and Kings Today?
Because it is fun. O. Henry was a entertainer, a craftsman of pleasure, a writer who never forgot that his job was to delight. Cabbages and Kings is a book to read in a hammock, with a cold drink nearby, while the tropical sun sets over the imaginary republic. It is also, if you pay attention, a book about serious things: empire, exploitation, the human cost of American ambition. But the seriousness is hidden, like the twist, waiting to be discovered.
FAQ
Is this a novel or a story collection?
It is both. O. Henry wrote the stories separately and then assembled them into a loose narrative framework. The result is a hybrid, sometimes called a “short story cycle” or “composite novel.”
What is a banana republic?
A small, politically unstable country whose economy is dominated by a single export crop (like bananas) and controlled by foreign corporations. The term was coined in Cabbages and Kings and has since become a standard phrase in political discourse.
Is O. Henry considered a great writer?
He was enormously popular in his lifetime and remains widely read. Critics have sometimes dismissed him as a mere entertainer, but his best work—including much of Cabbages and Kings—has lasting power.
Did O. Henry really flee to Honduras?
Yes. He was accused of embezzling funds from a bank in Austin, Texas, and fled to Honduras in 1896. He returned when his wife became ill, was arrested, and served three years in prison. His experiences in Central America directly informed Cabbages and Kings.
Can I read it on my phone?
Yes. The episodic structure makes it ideal for mobile reading. Each story is complete in itself, perfect for a commute or a coffee break.