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Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1862, William
Sydney Porter, went on to write some of the most
memorable short stories of all times. Having given up
formal education at the age of fifteen to apprentice
under a pharmacist, he later worked as a bookkeeper in a
Texas ranch and as a teller in the National Bank,
Austin.
Much like his stories, his life too experienced a lot of
twists and turns, so much so that he had to serve a
five-year sentence, for embezzling funds from the bank,
at the Federal Penitentiary, Columbus, Iowa. It was in
prison that he started writing short stories under the
pseudonym “O. Henry”.
His first collection of stories Cabbages and Kings was
published in 1904. The second, The Four Million,
published two years later included his well-known
stories “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room.”
O. Henry went on to write more than 600 stories and
published 10 collections in his lifetime.
He died, almost a pauper, in 1910 due to excessive
alcoholism.
The Best of O. Henry
It is not at all easy to compile a handful of short
stories from the vast corpus of work that O. Henry has
left behind. Nevertheless this collection has tried to
capture the art as well as the nuances that are the
hallmark of O. Henry's writings. These selected stories
not only give the reader a chance to read some of the
best known of his works but also bear ample evidence of
the wide range of his writings. On the one hand we find
the greatest Christmas story of all times “The Gift of
the Magi” while on the other there is “Shamrock Jolnes”
providing the American answer to the man from Baker
Street. O. Henry's depiction of the city, New York, and
his fascination with it, resulted in a number of
memorable stories, some of which have been included
here. A collection that contains the O. Henry distillate
– this is a must-read for all short story lovers as well
as for those who want to take a dip into the world of
classics. |
