In which 1904 short story collection did O. Henry coin the term 'banana republic'?

O. Henry coined the term “banana republic” in his 1904 short-story collection Cabbages and Kings.

Cabbages and Kings is structured as a series of interlinked stories set in the fictional Central American country of Anchuria. In the chapter “The Admiral,” O. Henry describes Anchuria as a “small maritime banana republic,” presenting a country whose economy depends heavily on bananas and whose politics are unstable and easily manipulated.

The book drew on William Sydney Porter’s experience in Honduras, where he lived for about six months in the late 1890s while hiding from U.S. authorities after being accused of embezzling money from an Austin bank. His observations helped shape Anchuria’s tropical setting, political upheavals, and dependence on foreign commercial interests.

The expression later broadened from O. Henry’s fictional country into a political term for a weak or corrupt state dominated by a narrow export economy and powerful foreign businesses. The title itself comes from the famous “The Walrus and the Carpenter” poem in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. It is often mistakenly attributed to a modern political writer rather than to O. Henry.