Classics for Christmas

by O. Henry

This carefully crafted ebook: “CLASSICS FOR CHRISTMAS: 180+ Novels, Christmas Tales, Poems & Carols in One Volume (Illustrated)” is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents:
Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (L. Frank Baum)
Where Love Is, God Is (Leo Tolstoy)
A Letter from Santa Claus (Mark Twain)
The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry)
The First Christmas Of New England (Harriet Beecher Stowe)
The Holy Night (Selma Lagerlöf)
Christmas at Thompson Hall (Anthony Trollope)
Christmas in the Olden Time (Walter Scott)
The Romance of a Christmas Card (Kate Douglas Wiggin)
The Twelve Days of Christmas
Silent Night
Ring Out, Wild Bells (Alfred Lord Tennyson)
Christmas with Grandma Elsie (Martha Finley)
Little Lord Fauntleroy (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery)
The Christmas Angel (Abbie Farwell Brown)
Black Beauty (Anna Sewell)
The Christmas Child (Hesba Stretton)
Granny's Wonderful Chair (Frances Browne)
Christmas At Sea (Robert Louis Stevenson)
The Little City of Hope (F. Marion Crawford)
Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)
The Birds' Christmas Carol (Kate Douglas Wiggin)
The Wonderful Life - Story of the life and death of our Lord (Hesba Stretton)
A Merry Christmas & Other Christmas Stories (Louisa May Alcott)
Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe (Elizabeth Harrison)
Peter Pan and Wendy (J. M. Barrie)
Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
Christmas In India (Rudyard Kipling)
The Wonderful Wizard of OZ (L. Frank Baum)
The Christmas Angel (Abbie Farwell Brown)
The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter)
Toinette and the Elves (Susan Coolidge)
The Heavenly Christmas Tree (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
At the Back of the North Wind (George MacDonald)
The Princess and the Goblin (George MacDonald)
The Ice Queen (Ernest Ingersoll)
Thurlow's Christmas Story (John Kendrick Bangs)
Christmas Every Day (William Dean Howells)
The Lost Word (Henry van Dyke)
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (E. T. A. Hoffmann)
The Little Match Girl
...

11045 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 1, 2016

About the author

Such volumes as Cabbages and Kings (1904) and The Four Million (1906) collect short stories, noted for their often surprising endings, of American writer William Sydney Porter, who used the pen name O. Henry.

His biography shows where he found inspiration for his characters. His era produced their voices and his language.

Mother of three-year-old Porter died from tuberculosis. He left school at fifteen years of age and worked for five years in drugstore of his uncle and then for two years at a Texas sheep ranch.

In 1884, he went to Austin, where he worked in a real estate office and a church choir and spent four years as a draftsman in the general land office. His wife and firstborn died, but daughter Margaret survived him.

He failed to establish a small humorous weekly and afterward worked in poorly-run bank. When its accounts balanced not, people blamed and fired him.

In Houston, he worked for a few years until, ordered to stand trial for embezzlement, he fled to New Orleans and thence Honduras.

Two years later, he returned on account of illness of his wife. Apprehended, Porter served a few months more than three years in a penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. During his incarceration, he composed ten short stories, including A Blackjack Bargainer , The Enchanted Kiss , and The Duplicity of Hargraves .

In 1899, McClure's published Whistling Dick's Christmas Story and Georgia's Ruling .

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he sent manuscripts to New York editors. In the spring of 1902, Ainslee's Magazine offered him a regular income if he moved to New York.

In less than eight years, he became a bestselling author of collections of short stories. Cabbages and Kings came first in 1904 The Four Million, and The Trimmed Lamp and Heart of the West followed in 1907, and The Voice of the City in 1908, Roads of Destiny and Options in 1909, Strictly Business and Whirligigs in 1910 followed.

Posthumously published collections include The Gentle Grafter about the swindler, Jeff Peters; Rolling Stones , Waifs and Strays , and in 1936, unsigned stories, followed.

People rewarded other persons financially more. A Retrieved Reformation about the safe-cracker Jimmy Valentine got $250; six years later, $500 for dramatic rights, which gave over $100,000 royalties for playwright Paul Armstrong. Many stories have been made into films.