The Gift of the Magi (Paperback)

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, famous for his short stories with surprise endings. (His most famous are "The Ransom of Red Chief" and the perennial Christmas story, "The Gift of the Magi".) He was a child prodigy who could do schoolwork with his right hand while drawing pictures with his left. He began writing in Texas, where he worked on a ranch as a young man, but wrote many of his stories while he was in Texas penitentiary, having been convicted (probably unjustly) of embezzling $299.60 from the bank where he was a teller. Upon his release, he moved to New York City, where, though he wrote and published dozens of stories, he was perpetually broke and often drunk. He died at 47, from diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver, with 23 cents in his pocket.