The setting of the story 
"The Skylight Room" is a modern day fairy tale, set in the heart of the authors favorite city, New York. This heartwarming tale describes the dream come true romance of Miss Leeson, a poor working girl in New York. Miss Leeson is a young women who works as a freelance typist with big firms in the city. Her income is ,however, insufficient to get her decent lodgings, so she is forced to rent what experienced house hunters call "The Skylight Room"The bare room has a small cot, a wash stand and a dresser- all that Miss Leeson can afford. On the floors below live the more affluent lodgers of the sharp tongued and snobbish Mrs. Parker, Miss Leeson's landlady. Mr. Skidder is a playwright, perpetually on the lookout for a muse. Miss Leeson fits the bill, and the heroine of Mr. Skidder's next play becomes a short, happy-go-lucky woman who has long auburn hair. Mr. Hoover, a fat, middle aged man, is not above taking advantage of poor young girls, and the young Mr. Evans develops a boyish infatuation toward this woman whose fancies are forever skimming the skies and the stars.
The schoolteacher, Miss Longnecker, a beautiful woman with no time for fancies, and the sports obsessed Miss Dorn are the other lodgers of Mrs. Parker's establishment. Miss Leeson soon becomes popular with all the lodgers, despite the fact that she is a poor outcast who has to live in "the skylight room". On a balmy evening, when the lodgers are sitting on the steps leading to the apartments, Miss Leeson points out Billy Jackson, the only star she can see through the skylight in her room. Though Miss Longnecker disagrees with her astronomical nomenclature and insists it is "Gamma", the other lodgers think Billy Jackson is a better name for a star. For Miss Leeson, the star is the only friend in a wide world whose only share comes to her in the form of a patch of black darkness called "the skylight room". It is not just a ball of gas and heat for her, it is a friend and confidante who knows her distress and sorrows. A few days later, Miss Leeson's unflagging cheerfulness finally starts to taper off, as she realizes that more difficulties lie in store for her. And as the story reaches its culmination, we find out exactly what the significance of "Billy Jackson" is in the existence of the poor typist.

The author of the story

Born William Sidney Porter, this master of short stories is much better known   under his pen name "O. Henry." He was born September 11, 1862 in North Carolina, where he spent his childhood. His only formal education was received at the school of his Aunt Lina, where he developed a lifelong love of books. In his uncle's pharmacy, he became a licensed pharmacist and was also known for his sketches and cartoons of the townspeople of Greensboro.
At the age of twenty, Porter came to Texas primarily for health reasons, and worked on a sheep ranch and lived with the family of Richard M. Hall, whose family had close ties with the Porter family back in North Carolina. It was here that Porter gained a knowledge for ranch life that he later described in many of his short stories.
    In 1884, Porter moved to Austin. For the next three years, where he roomed in the home of the Joseph Harrell family and held several jobs. It was during this time that Porter first used his pen name, O. Henry, said to be derived from his frequent calling of "Oh, 'Henry'" the family cat.
By 1887, Porter began working as a draftsman in the General Land Office, then headed by his old family friend, Richard Hall. In 1891 at the end of Hall's term at the Land Office, Porter resigned and became a teller with the First National Bank in Austin. After a few years, however, he left the bank and founded the Rolling Stone, an unsuccessful humor weekly. Starting in 1895 he wrote a column for the Houston Daily Post.
  Meanwhile, Porter was accused of embezzling funds dating back to his employment at the First National Bank. Leaving his wife and young daughter in Austin, Porter fled to New Orleans, then to Honduras, but soon returned due to his wife's deteriorating health. She died soon afterward, and in early 1898 Porter was found guilty of the banking charges and sentenced to five years in an Ohio prison.
   From this low point in Porter's life, he began a remarkable comeback. Three years and about a dozen short stories later, he emerged from prison as "O. Henry" to help shield his true identity. He moved to New York City, where over the next ten years before his death in 1910, he published over 300 stories and gained worldwide acclaim as America's favorite short story writer.
O. Henry wrote with realistic detail based on his first hand experiences both in Texas and in New York City. In 1907, he published many of his Texas stories inThe Heart of the West, a volume that includes "The Reformation of Calliope," "The Caballero's Way," and "The Hiding of Black Bill." 
   Porter died on June 5, 1910 in New York City at the age of forty seven. An alcoholic, he died virtually penniless.

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