The Gift of the Magi and Other Short Stories [antikvár]

Note 0. Henry (1862-1910) was bom William Sidney Porter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and died in New York City. Having survived both critical acclaim and vilification, he remains one of the most popular and entertaining short-story writers in American literature. As a youth he worked as a clerk in his hometown, traveling at the age of 19 to Texas, where he lived on a sheep ranch. Later he took a job as a bank teller in Austin and then as a columnist and cartoonist for the Houston Post. In 1896 0. Henry was indicted for the embezzlement of bank funds and sentenced to imprisonment. It was while in prison (1898-1901), when he was already writing fiction, that 0. Henry decided upon his future pen name (one Orrin Henry was serving as a guard in the Ohio prison to which 0. Henry had been sent). After his release, 0. Henry moved to New York, embarking upon a prolific and often frenetic literary career; at times he was turning out a story a week for the New York World. 0. Henry's stories, whether depicting life in the metropolis or on the Texas range, are populated for the most part by unremarkable characters: down-and-outs and shop assistants, ranchers and petty criminals. The well-known "twists in the tale," the improbable coincidences and ironies that have become the hallmark of 0. Henry's art, suggest, in the author's best work, that within the seeming ubiquity of the commonplace and the routine the world can suddenly take on a fantastical aspect with a sometimes benevolent, sometimes malevolent disregard for human expectations. The present volume includes selections from throughout O. Henry's mature creative life, from his first important collection, The Four Million (1906), to the posthumously published Sixes and Sevens (1911). When encountering the author's humorous and sometimes indecorous