John Henry O’Hara (January 31, 1905 – April 11, 1970) was one of America’s most prolific writers of short stories, credited with helping to invent The New Yorker magazine short story style. He became a best-selling novelist before the age of 30 with Appointment in Samarra and Butterfield 8. While O’Hara’s legacy as a writer is debated, his champions rank him highly among the under-appreciated and unjustly neglected major American writers of the 20th century. Few college students educated after O’Hara’s death in 1970 have discovered him, chiefly because he refused to allow his work to be reprinted in anthologies used to teach literature at the college level.
Books in order of publication:
Novels
Appointment in Samarra (1934)
Butterfield 8 (1935)
Hope of Heaven (1938)
Pal Joey (1940)
A Rage to Live (1949)
The Farmers Hotel (1951) — adapted from O’Hara’s original play
Ten North Frederick (1955) — winner of the National Book Award for Fiction[9]
A Family Party (1956)
From the Terrace (1958)
Ourselves to Know (1960)
The Big Laugh (1962)
Elizabeth Appleton (1963)
The Lockwood Concern (1965)
The Instrument (1967)
Lovey Childs: A Philadelphian’s Story (1969)
The Ewings (1970)
The Second Ewings (1972)
Short story collections
The Doctor’s Son and Other Stories (1935)
Files on Parade (1939)
Pipe Night (1945)
Hellbox (1947)
Sermons and Soda Water: A Trilogy of Three Novellas (1960)
Assembly (1961)
The Cape Cod Lighter (1962)
The Hat on the Bed (1963)
The Horse Knows the Way (1964)
Waiting for Winter (1966)
And Other Stories (1968)
The Time Element and Other Stories (1972)
Good Samaritan and Other Stories (1974)
Gibbsville, PA (Carroll & Graf, 1992,
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