the beginning of the twentieth century (1900). Not all are notable for
humor; but inasmuch as any consideration of the American humorous
short story cannot be wholly dissociated from a consideration of the
American short story in general, it has seemed not amiss to mention
these authors here. Although Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) lived on
into the twentieth century and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1862- ) is
still with us, the best and most typical work of these two writers
belongs in the last two decades of the previous century. To an earlier
period also belong Charles Egbert Craddock (1850- ), George Washington
Cable (1844- ), Thomas Nelson Page (1853- ), Constance Fenimore
Woolson (1848-1894), Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835- ), Hamlin
Garland (1860- ), Ambrose Bierce (1842-?), Rose Terry Cooke
(1827-1892), and Kate Chopin (1851-1904).

"O. Henry" was the pen name adopted by William Sydney Porter. He began
his short story career by contributing _Whistling Dick's Christmas
Stocking_ to _McClure's Magazine_ in 1899. He followed it with many
stories dealing with Western and South- and Central-American life, and
later came most of his stories of the life of New York City, in which
field lies most of his best work. He contributed more stories to the
_New York World_ than to any other one publication--as if the stories
of the author who later came to be hailed as "the American Maupassant"
were not good enough for the "leading" magazines but fit only for the
sensation-loving public of the Sunday papers! His first published
story that showed distinct strength was perhaps _A Blackjack
Bargainer_ (August, 1901, _Munsey's_). He followed this with such
masterly stories as: _The Duplicity of Hargraves_ (February, 1902,
_Junior Munsey_), _The Marionettes_ (April, 1902, _Black Cat_), _A
Retrieved Reformation_ (April, 1903, _Cosmopolitan_), _The Guardian of
the Accolade_ (May, 1903, _Cosmopolitan_), _The Enchanted Kiss_