Cabbages and Kings

E-279: McClure, Phillips and Company. Good. 1904. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Published by McClure, Phillips and Company, New York. 1904. Xxii, 231 pages. Reprint. Bound in decorated blue cloth boards with titles present to the spine and front board. Boards have shelf-wear present to the extremities (spine sunned, rear board is scuffed and worn). No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. O. Henry stitched together several stories into this episodic narrative, taking his inspiration - and title - from Lewis Carroll. The setting is Anchuria, a mythical banana republic where larceny is rampant and revolution always a possibility "Banana republic" was coined in a 1904 book of fiction by O. Henry, an American writer. Henry (whose real name was William Sydney Porter) was on the run from Texan authorities, who had charged him with embezzlement. He fled first to New Orleans and then to Honduras where, staying in a cheap hotel, he wrote "Cabbages and Kings", a collection of short stories. One, "The Admiral", was set in the fictional land of Anchuria, a "small, maritime banana republic". It is clear that the steamy, dysfunctional Latin republic he described is based on Honduras, his jungle hideaway. Henry eventually returned to the United States, where he spent time in prison before publishing his short stories and then hitting the bottle, leading to an early death. EB; 12mo 7" - 7½" tall; 344 pages .