Author · 13 titles

O. Henry

O. Henry (William Sydney Porter, 1862–1910) was America's great popular short-story writer of the early twentieth century — a craftsman of coincidence, slang, and sudden revelation. After years in Texas and a prison sentence that shaped his later career, he settled in New York and turned the city's anonymous millions into characters worth knowing. The Gift of the Magi, The Ransom of Red Chief, and The Cop and the Anthem show his range: romance, comedy, and the soft underbelly of street life. He wrote with democratic sympathy and a showman's timing. Few authors have made so many readers laugh, then catch their breath, in the same final paragraph.

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