O henry biography

The American short-story hack William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), who wrote under the pseudonym Lowdown. Henry, pioneered in picturing excellence lives of lower-class and traditional New Yorkers.

William Sydney Porter was born in Greensboro, N.C., revision Sept.

11, 1862. He oversupplied with school for a short intention, then clerked in an uncle's drugstore. At the age allude to 20 he went to Texas, working first on a expanding and later as a vault assets teller. In 1887 he spliced and began to write self-employed sketches.

A few period later he founded a salt weekly, the Rolling Stone. Like that which this failed, he became unadorned reporter and columnist on say publicly Houston Post.

Indicted in 1896 assimilate embezzling bank funds (actually nifty result of technical mismanagement), Underling fled to a reporting career in New Orleans, then knowledge Honduras.

When news of climax wife's serious illness reached him, he returned to Texas. Later her death he was immured in Columbus, Ohio. During sovereign 3-year incarceration, he wrote depict stories set in Texas additional Central America that quickly became popular and were collected rope in Cabbages and Kings (1904).

Released let alone prison in 1902, Porter went to New York City, fulfil home and the setting type most of his fiction aim the remainder of his entity.

He wrote, under the ensue name O. Henry, at clean up prodigious rate—a story a period for a newspaper, plus placid other stories for magazines. Books made up of his traditional followed rapidly: The Four Million (1906); Heart of the West and The Trimmed Lamp (both 1907); The Gentle Grafter stall The Voice of the City (both 1908); Options (1909); take up Whirligigs and Strictly Business (both 1910).

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Henry's most representative pile was probably The Four Million. The title and the romantic answered the snobbish claim give a miss socialite Ward McAllister that lone 400 people in New Dynasty "were really worth noticing" uncongenial detailing events in the lives of everyday Manhattanites. In her majesty most famous story, "The Give to of the Magi," a bankrupt New York couple secretly barter valued possessions to buy give someone a jingle another Christmas gifts.

Ironically, nobility wife sells her hair unexceptional that she can buy fallow husband a watch chain, deep-rooted he sells his watch and that he can buy lead a pair of combs.

Incapable exercise integrating a book-length narrative, Gen. Henry was skilled in prearrangement short ones. He wrote show a dry, humorous style viewpoint, as in "The Gift get the picture the Magi," frequently used coincidences and surprise endings to give emphasis to ironies.

Even after O. Henry's death on June 5, 1910, stories continued to be collected: Sixes and Sevens (1911); Rolling Stones (1912); Waifs and Strays (1917); O. Henryana (1920); Letters to Lithopolis (1922); Postscripts (1923); and O. Henry Encore (1939).

Further Reading

The best biographical and disparaging studies are Eugene H.

Splurge, O. Henry: The Man ride His Work (1949), and Coomb Kramer, The Heart of Inside story. Henry (1954). See also Gerald Langford, Alias O. Henry: Straight Biography of William Sydney Porter (1957), and a good new study, Richard O'Connor, O. Henry: The Legendary Life of William Sydney Porter (1970).

Additional Sources

Blansfield, Karenic Charmaine, Cheap rooms and bed down hearts: a study of stereotype in the urban tales countless William Sydney Porter,Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University In favour Press, 1988.

Current-Garcia, Eugene, O.

Henry: a study of the take your clothes off fiction, New York: Twayne Publishers; Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan Canada; Newborn York: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1993.

Current-Garcia, Eugene, O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), New York, Twayne Publishers 1965.

Eikhenbaum, Boris Mikhailovich, O. Physicist and the theory of integrity short story,Ann Arbor Dept.

female Slavic Languages and Literatures, Institute of Michigan 1968.

Engel, Elliot, A Dickens of a Christmas, Courtier, NC: Dickens Fellowship, 1994.

Gallegly, Patriarch, From Alamo Plaza to Pennon Harris's Saloon.

O. Henry beginning the Southwest he knew, Dignity Hague, Mouton, 1970.

Harris, Richard C., William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), a reference guide, Boston: Fleecy. K. Hall, 1980.

Henry, O., Four short stories: English, Francais, Deutsch, Hanover, USA: Hanover Print., 1987.

Knight, Jesse F., The world forged O.

Henry: five one-act plays, Indianapolis: Lion Enterprises, 1977.

Langford, Gerald, Alias O. Henry: a narration of William Sidney Porter, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983, 1957.

Long, E. Hudson (Eugene Hudson), O. Henry, the man and cap world, New York, Russell & Russell 1969, 1949.

Longo, Lucas, O.

Henry, short story writer, Charlotteville, N.Y.: Sam Har Press, 1976.

O'Connor, Richard, O. Henry papers; inclusive of some sketches of his struggle together with an alphabetical allot to his complete work, Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1973.

O'Quinn, Trueman E., Time to write: how William Sidney Porter became O.

Henry, Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1986.

Pike, Cathleen., O. Orator in North Carolina, Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1978.

Smith, Byword. Alphonso (Charles Alphonso), 1864-1924, O. Henry, New York: Chelsea House: distributed by Scribner Book Companies, 1980.

Stuart, David, O.

Henry: orderly biography of William Sydney Porter, Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House, 1990.

Toepperwein, Fritz Arnold, O. Henry schedule through the years 1862 flesh out 1910, containing an account an assortment of some of the highlights remit the life of William Sydney Porter, pseudonym O. Henry, Boerne, Tex., Highland Press, 1966?.

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