Heart of the West, first published in 1907, collects many, though not all, of O. Henry’s Western stories, and most of the stories in the book are set in Texas. Perhaps reflecting William Porter’s own experience as a young man in the middle of nowhere on the Texas prairie, where women were few and far between, many of the stories are comic tales of romantic rivalry, usually featuring two bluff and feckless young men in competition for the attention of the same rather remote and demanding young woman.
This comically romantic longing is often deflected into an outlandish competition, the winner of which is supposed to get the girl. In the funniest story in the book, “The Handbook of Hymen” (which is set in Montana), two prospectors, Sanderson Pratt and his partner, Idaho Green, come down out of the mountains and each try to woo a pretty widow by the book—literally.
United States