The Complete Works of O Henry Author:O Henry O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, a man whose influence on the writers of his own and succeeding generations cannot be overestimated. The "O. Henry ending"--the surprise twist that finished so many of his stories--has become a lasting trade mark for one of America's master storytellers. Born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in... more » 1862, he left school at the age of fifteen and went to Texas, intent on becoming a cowboy. Instead he became the editor of a small newspaper in Austin and began writing sketches which he sold to papers in Houston and Detroit. After a period of drifting through Central America, he returned to New York and became one of the highest-paid and most prolific writers of his day. During his lifetime he wrote hundreds of pieces of fiction, many of which have found their way into films. O. Henry died of tuberculosis in New York in 1910. The annual O. Henry prize stories are published as a memorial to him by Doubleday and Company, publishers of this book and of many of his separate volumes in the past.« less