The Trimmed Lamp (1907) is a collection of twenty-five short stories by American writer O. Henry. Inspired by his experiences as a fugitive and prisoner, these stories address themes of poverty and city life with humor and abundant empathy. Its focus on the regular, working class people of New York City makes The Trimmed Lamp a sequel of sorts to Henry’s The Four Million (1906), perhaps his most important collection. In “The Trimmed Lamp, ” two friends discuss work, love, and money while standing on a city street-corner. They both came to New York in search of work, and though Nancy enjoys her low paying job as a shop girl at a department store, Lou brags about her employment as an ironer at a laundry and encourages her friend to look for something else to do. While they wait for Lou’s boyfriend Dan, Lou asks Nancy about the wealthy men who frequent her store, and secretly wonders what it would be like to marry into money. “The Last Leaf” is a story of two artists living in Greenwich Village. While Sue lies bedridden from pneumonia, each day growing closer to death, she watches from her window a vine across the street. As fall turns to winter, its leaves drop one by one, until nothing remains but one last leaf. In another apartment, an old artist named Behrman watches the vine as well, painting the leaf with a renewed sense of purpose and a lifetime of skill and precision. This edition of O. Henry’s The Trimmed Lamp is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.
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O. Henry (1862-1910) was an American short story writer. Born and raised in North Carolina, O. Henry—whose real name was William Sydney Porter—moved to Texas in 1882 in search of work. He met and married Athol Estes in Austin, where he became well known as a musician and socialite. In 1888, Athol gave birth to a son who died soon after, and in 1889 a daughter named Margaret was born. Porter began working as a teller and bookkeeper at the First National Bank of Austin in 1890 and was fired four years later and accused of embezzlement. Afterward, he began publishing a satirical weekly called The Rolling Stone, but in 1895 he was arrested in Houston following an audit of his former employer. While waiting to stand trial, Henry fled to Honduras, where he lived for six months before returning to Texas to surrender himself upon hearing of Athol’s declining health. She died in July of 1897 from tuberculosis, and Porter served three years at the Ohio Penitentiary before moving to Pittsburgh to care for his daughter. While in prison, he began publishing stories under the pseudonym “O. Henry, ” finding some success and launching a career that would blossom upon his release with such short stories as “The Gift of the Magi” (1905) and “The Ransom of Red Chief” (1907). He is recognized as one of America’s leading writers of short fiction, and the annual O. Henry Award—which has been won by such writers as William Faulkner, John Updike, and Eudora Welty—remains one of America’s most prestigious literary prizes.
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