Alias O. Henry (1862)

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"[A]n exuberant biographical novel . . . Riffing cleverly on O. Henry's most cherished stories, Yagoda presents a vivid, witty, and delectable tale of crime and creativity." —Booklist O. Henry, who may be best remembered for his short story "The Gift of the Magi," was a mysterious figure, as inventive with the details of his own life as he was in his fiction. In Alias O. Henry, Ben Yagoda vividly imagines O. Henry's life, as well as the events that could have inspired his most famous tales. O. Henry, born William Sidney Porter, arrived in New York City fresh from the Ohio Penitentiary, where he had served three and a half years for embezzlement. It was the dawn of the twentieth century, a time of remarkable change when the city's physical presence was being altered by new skyscrapers and subways, and its character by waves of immigrants. The American magazine had just reached its pinnacle as an enterprise, and the