From the Annals of the Storytellers –   In 1906, William Sidney Porter (better known as O’ Henry) published his second volume of short stories.  The book entitled The Four Million  contains the famous story The Gift of the Magi, in which a husband and wife sell their most loved possession in order to give each other a Christmas gift.

In a strange and prophetic twist, Porter’s literary career took off after he was convicted of embezzlement and jailed in Austin in 1898.  After he was indicted, Porter fled to Honduras.  However, he returned to Texas upon discovering that his wife had a terminal illness.  Porter spent the next three years in prison writing adventure stories to support his daughter. He devoted himself to his writing and began to perfect his craft of writing stories with an unexpected twist – sometimes humorous as in the famous tale of The Ransom of Red Chief  and sometimes more serious as in The Gift of the Magi.    Upon release, he moved to New York where he secured a job writing stories for the New York World.   He published his first collection, Cabbages and Kings, in 1904 and several more before his death in 1910 totaling almost 300 stories.  His popular success did not translate into personal success and he battled alcoholism and financial troubles to the end.

Photo of the O’Henry Museum from austintexas.gov