Book cover for The Voice of the City by O. Henry

The Voice of the City

2014 Released
160 Pages
3-4 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Start ClassicsISBN 9781633551787

Twenty-five years ago the school children used to chant their lessons. The manner of their delivery was a singsong recitative between the utterance of an Episcopal minister and the drone of a tired sawmill. I mean no disrespect. We must have lumber and sawdust. I remember one beautiful and instructive little lyric that emanated from the physiology class. The most striking line of it was this: "The shin-bone is the long-est bone in the hu-man bod-y." What an inestimable boon it would have been if all the corporeal and spiritual facts pertaining to man had thus been tunefully and logically inculcated in our youthful minds! But what we gained in anatomy, music and philosophy was meagre.

O. Henry

William Sydney Porter (1862–1910)—better known as O. Henry—is one of the world's most widely published writers. A master of the short story, he is the author of more than six hundred tales that have been translated into nearly every language. He is best known for his stories about New York City, which include The Gift of the Magi and The Purple Dress.

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