O. Henry

O. Henry was born in 1862 in North Carolina. His real name was William Sydney Porter. At the age of twenty, he moved to Texas, primarily for health reasons, where he worked various jobs (initially at the family ranch of Richard M. Hall, and later at the General Land Office and the First National Bank of Austin). He was accused of embezzlement against the First National Bank—although there were doubts about his guilt—and was forced to flee to New Orleans initially, and then to Honduras. However, he returned to Austin due to his wife's poor health. In 1898, he was sentenced to five years in prison for the crime of embezzlement. From this low point in his life, he began his journey of resurgence through writing while in prison. After serving three-fifths of his sentence, he moved to New York and permanently adopted the pseudonym O. Henry. He became well-known primarily for his short stories, as after 1901, he wrote and published more than 300 stories in magazines such as "The New York World," among others, which established him as one of the best American writers of the time (collections include: "Cabbages and Kings," 1904, "The Four Million," 1906, "The Trimmed Lamp," 1907, "The Heart of the West," 1907, featuring stories about Texas ranchers, among others). He died in 1910 at the age of forty-seven, an alcoholic and nearly penniless.