In this volume, the legendary O. Henry takes readers into the careworn lives of early twentieth-century New Yorkers. The Gift of the Magi , one of this prolific author’s most famous tales, tells of a couple of modest means who discover that neither can afford to buy the other a Christmas present. The lengths to which they go in order to show their love through giving reveal unexpectedly how priceless it really is. In The Cop and the Anthem, a vagrant in search of warm lodgings for winter tries his best to be incarcerated but finds that no policeman will arrest him. When a woman falls seriously ill in The Last Leaf , she comes to believe she will die when the remaining leaves on the tree outside her window drop much to the dismay of her beloved friends. A man waits for his old friend in After Twenty Years, honouring a pact made two decades earlier to meet on the same spot.

O. Henry, born William Sydney Porter, is the author of hundreds of short stories. Born in North Carolina, he achieved his greatest fame starting in his early forties, in New York. He is renowned for his wordplay and “twist” endings, yet his insight and compassion are also essential features of his style.


ISBN 9781911475323 – Paperback – 110mm x 140 mm – 64 pages
 – £2.99