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O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter (1862 – 1910) an America writer who has achieved lasting fame through his short stories. He began writing while in prison after being found guilty of embezzlement, and was a prolific writer until his early death resulting from his heavy drinking. While he has received little praise from the critics, his stories continue to be hugely popular with the readers around the world.

Jack London (1876-1916) is a good example of how the popularity of a writer can wax and wane over the years. In the first fifteeen years of the twentieth century, London’s stories of his native America monopolised the market like few authors before or since, yet following his early death interest in his work dwindled. It was not until the 1960s that his work began to be re-evaluated, and he is now considered one of America’s finest, and most widely translated, writers.

The writing career of Herman Melville (1819 – 1891) peaked early, with his early novels, such as ‘Typee’ becoming best sellers. By the mid-1850s his popularity declined sharply, and by the time he died he had been largely forgotten. Yet in time his novel ‘Moby Dick’ came to be regarded as one of the finest works of American, and indeed world, literature, as was ‘Billy Budd’, which was not published until long after his death, in 1924.

Although many books have been influential on their times, Abraham Lincoln is said to have suggested that ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ caused the American civil war. When Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) wrote the book, she could not have envisaged its success – sales of the book in the nineteenth century were second only to the bible, and she became a central figure in the fight against slavery.