O. Henry

O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862–1910), born in Greensboro, North Carolina, who worked as a pharmacist, ranch hand, bank teller, and draftsman before an 1894 audit of the Austin bank where he had worked found funds missing; he fled to Honduras, returned when his wife fell fatally ill, and was convicted of embezzlement in 1897, serving over three years in the Ohio Penitentiary. There, writing to support his young daughter, he began publishing short stories under pseudonyms, settling on "O. Henry" upon his 1901 release. Moving to New York in 1902, he wrote prolifically for newspapers and magazines — at his peak producing a story a week — building a body of work, including The Four Million (1906), Heart of the West (1907), and The Voice of the City (1908), known for its ironic coincidences and twist endings, and for finding sympathetic drama in the lives of ordinary New Yorkers. Heavy drinking and declining health marked his last years; he died in New York at forty-seven.