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The American short-story writer famous for the twist ending.
O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, the American master of the short story with a twist at the end, from The Gift of the Magi to The Ransom of Red Chief.
Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1862 and trained as a pharmacist. In Texas he worked on a ranch, as a draftsman and as a bank teller. He was convicted of embezzling from the bank, and while in prison from 1898 to 1901 he began publishing stories under the name O. Henry.
He moved to New York and wrote hundreds of stories, often one a week for a newspaper, about shop girls, clerks, tramps and con men. His trademark was the surprise ending, and his warmth for ordinary people runs through all of them. He died in New York in 1910, and the O. Henry Prize for short stories is named after him.
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all.
The Gift of the Magi
A young couple's Christmas gifts, and the most famous twist in American fiction.
17 min · read by Christopher Mireider 
The Ransom of Red Chief
Two kidnappers grab the wrong boy. Pure comedy.
25 min · read by Christopher Garcia 
The Last Leaf
A painter, a dying friend and one last leaf on the vine. Our most-played O. Henry.
17 min · read by Lauren Maza 
Narrated by Joe Reeder
William Pry is bored on a slow afternoon. When he sees a crowd gathered by a billboard, he pushes into the front line, where he finds a young woman, Violet Seymour, doing...
Narrated by Mike Polischuk
A swaggering “citizen of the world” meets an irresistible O. Henry twist when hometown pride boils over—brought to life with crisp, witty narration by Mike Polischuk.
Narrated by Matthew Guldner
A witty O. Henry comedy of misdirection and domestic intrigue, performed with breezy charm by Matthew Guldner. Perfect for a commute or coffee break.
Narrated by Shaun Michael Gray
Yancey Goree was once a lawyer of some standing in the small Blue Ridge town of Bethel. Now he is a ruined gambler, shut out of the card game by the very men who took his...
Narrated by Tess Stalker
A plain waitress tastes sudden romance—and a sharp O. Henry irony—in a New York chop house, as Tess Stalker’s warm narration captures the ache, wit, and fragile hope of a...
Narrated by Jason Michael Mann
Soapy seeks arrest to survive a New York winter, stumbles into hope by a church anthem, and meets O. Henry’s most ironic twist. A witty, moving classic performed by Jason...
Narrated by Tony J Martin
Major Pendleton Talbot and his daughter Lydia have lost their money and moved to Washington, D.C. At the boarding house they meet Henry Hopkins Hargraves, a vaudeville ac...
Narrated by Christopher Mireider
It is Christmas Eve and Della has one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy a present for her husband Jim. They are poor, and each owns one treasure: her long hair, his go...
Narrated by Mike Polischuk
Lawyer Gooch likes to say that his three connected offices are built like the bottom of a ship, with watertight compartments so one leak cannot sink the vessel. Most of h...
Narrated by Lauren Maza
In a Greenwich Village artists' colony, two young painters, Sue and Johnsy, share a studio. When Johnsy falls ill with pneumonia, she decides she will die when the last l...
Narrated by Tess Stalker
Miss Lynnette D'Armande, an out-of-work actress, is mending stockings in her room at a Broadway theatrical hotel when her old friend Rosalie Ray turns up unannounced. Ros...
Narrated by Christopher Garcia
Two small-time crooks, Sam and Bill, decide to kidnap the son of a wealthy man in a sleepy Alabama town and ask for a ransom. The boy, ten-year-old Johnny, thinks it's a...
Narrated by Patrick Walls
Hedges is a loud, heavy-drinking man spending money freely in a New York bar. In the early hours of the morning an argument breaks out, and a man named Ralph Merriam take...
Narrated by Brett Carter
A young man sits on a bench in a New York park at dusk. A girl in a plain gray dress sits down, and they begin to talk. She says she lives on a different level of society...
William Sydney Porter is born in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Moves to Texas.
Imprisoned for embezzlement; begins writing as O. Henry.
Moves to New York City.
The Gift of the Magi.
Dies in New York City.
William Sydney Porter. He began using the name O. Henry while in prison around 1900.
Short stories with surprise endings, especially The Gift of the Magi and The Ransom of Red Chief.
The Gift of the Magi. It's short, warm and has his most famous twist.
Academy Voices has 14 O. Henry audiobooks, each performed by a real narrator, with a free sample on every one. Every recording is Certified Human Voice.
Reviewed October 2026 by the Academy Voices team. Sources: Wikipedia, Wikidata .
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