![]() Despite the enormous popularity of the nearly 300 stories he published, he led a difficult life, struggling with financial problems and alcoholism until his death in 1910. Porter attended school for a short time, then clerked in an uncle's drugstore. He specialized in stories about everyday people, often ending with an unexpected twist. The American short-story writer pioneered in picturing the lives of lower-class and middle-class New Yorkers. His second, The Four Million (1906), contained one of his most beloved stories, The Gift of the Magi, about a poor couple who each sacrifice their most valuable possession to buy a gift for the other.Īdditional collections appeared in 19, and two collections a year were published in 1908 until his death in 1910. Della suddenly goes to gaze at her reflection in a window, letting her hair fall to its. She had been hoping to save enough to buy her husband Jim a worthy Christmas present. In 1904, his first story collection, Cabbages and Kings, was published. The story begins with Della despairing over the meager amount of money she’s managed to save over the past few months by pinching pennies. He went to jail and began writing stories to support his young daughter while he was in prison.Īfter his release, Porter moved to New York and worked for New York World, writing one short story a week from 1903 to 1906. To escape imprisonment, Porter had fled the authorities and hidden in Honduras, but returned when his wife, still in the U.S., was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Henry, is released from prison on this day, after serving three years in jail for embezzlement from a bank in Austin, Texas. ![]() William Sydney Porter, otherwise known as O. ![]()
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