O. Henry. short stories about people. read online. About Henry: short stories, early works Stories about Henry

Abel Startsev

The Life and Stories of O. Henry

A. Startsev. Life and stories of O. Henry // O. Henry. Collected works in three volumes. T. 1. - M.: Pravda, 1975. - P. 3-34.

O. Henry. The name is known to more than one generation of readers. The most popular American humorist of the beginning of the century and a master storyteller, one of the luminaries of this genre, which has a long tradition in US literature.

Moreover, although millions of people have read and are reading O. Henry’s stories, his place in history American literature can't be called durable. Literary historians differ in their opinions about him. Especially when it comes to assessing his work next to the powerful flow of socially-saturated, critical-realist American literature of those years, with the late Twain and the young Dreiser, Jack London and Upton Sinclair.

No matter how you decide this issue - we will touch on it later - it remains indisputable that the life and stories of O. Henry, taken as a whole - his work, his writing path, his fate - form a bright and remarkable page in the history of American culture at the beginning of the 20th century.

William Sidney Porter, who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry, was born in 1862 in the southern United States, in Greensboro (North Carolina) in the family of a village doctor. He was left without a mother early; After the death of his wife, the father soon became an alcoholic and gave up his medical practice. At the age of fifteen, the boy left school and became an apprentice at a pharmacy store, where he received the profession of a pharmacist.

In 1882, he went to Texas and lived for two years in the steppe, on a cattle ranch, communicating with cowboys and the motley wandering people who inhabited at that time this little-inhabited outskirts of the United States. Having improved his health - this was one of the goals of his stay at the ranch - young Porter moved to Austin in 1884, not big city OK, the capital of Texas. For twelve years he was a citizen of Austin, working first as a clerk-draftsman in the land office, later as an accountant and cashier in an Austin bank. He devoted a lot of time to self-education and was popular in society as an entertaining conversationalist and a keen cartoonist. At the same time, Porter published his first literary experiments, which showed his undeniable comedic talent. In 1894-1895 he published the humorous weekly Rolling Stone in Austin, and later, in 1895-1896; wrote a feuilleton for the weekly Post newspaper, published in the neighboring Texas city of Houston.

At the end of 1894, a bank audit discovered a shortfall of five thousand dollars, and Porter lost his position at the bank. Some of the writer's biographers believe that he was guilty of nothing more than negligence - the bank's reporting was carried out in a disorderly manner. Others believe that during periods of particularly strong financial difficulties, caused by the costs of publishing Rolling Stone, he arbitrarily took money from bank funds and failed to make up the shortfall.

At first it seemed that Porter would be able to avoid prosecution, but in February 1896 he was arrested. Released on an obligation to appear in court on embezzlement charges. bank money, panic-stricken. Porter secretly traveled to New Orleans and from there fled to Honduras - in Central America - outside the jurisdiction of the US judiciary.

Porter lived in Honduras for about a year. He met another American there, also a fugitive from the law. This young Southerner, Al Jennings, a train raider and scion of a bankrupt plantation family, subsequently published an important memoir of his writer friend, O. Henry is at the bottom."

Porter remained in Central America until news of the fatal disease wives. He returned home, surrendered to the authorities, was released on bail pending trial, buried his wife, and was then sentenced to five years in prison in February 1898.

Porter’s prison years became known from the already mentioned memoirs of Jennings, which appeared after his death (they met again in prison). O. Henry himself did not say a word about the “dead house” until the end of his life. He served his sentence in Columbus, Ohio, a convict prison under a regime whose descriptions in Jennings (and in some of O. Henry's discovered letters to his family) bring to mind the diaries of prisoners in later prisons of Hitler's Germany. The convicts were exhausted with backbreaking work, starved, brutally tortured, and if they disobeyed, they were beaten to death.

Porter was saved by his knowledge of pharmacy, which provided him with a privileged position as a night pharmacist at the prison hospital. He was spared physical torment, but due to the nature of his work, he witnessed most of the tragedies that occurred in the prison.

Porter's sentence was reduced "for good behavior." In the summer of 1901, he was released after being in prison for more than three years.

While still in prison, Porter managed to release and publish three stories, and he decided to become a professional writer. After leaving prison, he soon moved to New York, established contacts with editors and, settling on the pseudonym O. Henry, became known by this name to the general reading public.

Eight years of intense literary work. At the end of 1903, O. Henry signed a contract with the largest circulation New York newspaper, The World, for fifty-two Sunday stories a year at a price of $100 “a piece.” He also contributes to other literary publications. In 1904 he published sixty-six stories and in 1905 - sixty-four. During this period, he worked as if on a literary conveyor belt. The memoirist remembers O. Henry sitting at his desk, finishing two stories at once, and the editorial artist eagerly waiting for him to start illustrating. Despite all the ingenuity of O. Henry, he does not have enough plots, and he sometimes “buys” them from friends and acquaintances.

The work of these years, apparently, exceeded his strength. In the future the pace writing activity O. Henry is noticeably weakening.

In total, O. Henry's literary heritage includes over two hundred and fifty stories. His books were published in the following sequence: “Kings and Cabbage” (1904), “Four Million” (1906), “The Heart of the West” (1907), “The Burning Lamp” (1907), “The Voice of the Big City” (1908), “ Noble Rogue" (1908), "Roads of Fate" (1909), "To Choose" (1909), " Business people"(1910), "Rotating" (1910) and posthumously three more: "A Little Bit of Everything" (1911), "Under a Lying Stone" (1912) and "Remains" (1917). In 1912-1917, three collected works of O. Henry were published. Subsequently, his uncollected stories and early humoresques were published several more times.

Impractical, with the characteristic skills of a bohemian in everyday life, O. Henry was unable to extract from his literary success monetary benefit. He spent the last months of his life alone in a hotel room, undermined by illness and alcoholism, in need of money and no longer able to work. He died in a New York hospital on June 6, 1910, at the age of 48. O. Henry shunned literary acquaintances, and some of American writers who came to the funeral service, saw their brother for the first time only in the coffin.

O. Henry's stories can be divided into two main groups. The first of them includes the New York cycle (about one hundred and fifty short stories), united by the location of the action and the fact that the characters in it are “four million” (as the writer calls the population of this largest American city, from street beggars to stock exchange kings). The second - smaller - group includes stories set in the South and West of the United States, sometimes in South America. Characters they feature cowboys, bandits and all sorts of tramps and rogues.

Somewhat apart, but in a number of ways similar to the second group of stories, stands the story (chain of short stories) “Kings and Cabbages”, the setting of which is a certain collective and conventionally depicted state in Central America.

Distinctive Features All of O. Henry's works are characterized by pronounced dynamism of composition and humor.

The dynamism of the stories is aggravated by the characteristic escalation of the plot, in which the usual or considered usual logic of events is confused, disrupted, and the reader moves from one surprise to another in order to be “deceived” by a false denouement and then stunned by another, final one, which was difficult to predict based on the initial course of action. or even completely impossible. This is the structure of the vast majority of O. Henry's stories.

O. Henry's humor is characteristic of his work as a whole. Most The stories are based on a comic situation. But even in those cases where the story is not humorous in the proper sense, humor is present in the language of the characters, in the stage directions and comments of the author, and in the very construction of the plot, the puzzlingness of which is also, as a rule, endowed with a humorous function.

The success of O. Henry's stories in the United States and around the world was primarily the success of a humorous storyteller. A playful style of storytelling, the ability to find an entertaining and funny side in any seemingly unremarkable everyday phenomenon, an inexhaustible supply of jokes and puns, and sparkles of satire characterize almost every page of O. Henry.

O. Henry's humorous art is rooted in the American tradition. One of his first humoresques, “I'm Interviewing the President,” could have come from the pen of the young Twain. Another, written during the same early Texas period, The Mystery of Pecheux Street, closely resembles Bret Harte's literary parodies.

O. Henry's mocking and belittling humor is characteristic of the American tradition as a whole. Originating in feudal Europe, it was at first the humor of the commoner, ridiculing the privileges and pretensions of the aristocrat; in anti-feudal America, it took root and was “domesticated.” This line of American humor received its highest, consistently democratic expression in the works of Mark Twain.

Amazing

We know a man who is perhaps the most witty of all thinkers ever born in our country. His way of logically solving a problem almost borders on inspiration.

One day last week, his wife asked him to do some shopping and, due to the fact that, despite all the power of logical thinking, he is quite forgetful about everyday little things, she tied a knot in his handkerchief. Around nine o'clock in the evening, rushing home, he accidentally took out a handkerchief, noticed a bundle and stopped dead in his tracks. At least kill him! - I couldn’t remember for what purpose this knot was tied.

We'll see, he said. - The knot was made so that I would not forget. So he is a forget-me-not. Forget-me-not is a flower. Yeah! Eat! I have to buy flowers for the living room.

The powerful intellect did its job.

Summoning a Stranger

He was tall, angular, with sharp gray eyes and a solemnly serious face. The dark coat he was wearing was buttoned up with all the buttons and had something of a priestly cut in its cut. His dirty reddish trousers hung loosely, not even covering the tops of his shoes, but his tall hat was extremely impressive, and in general one would have thought that he was a village preacher on a Sunday walk.

He drove while sitting in a small cart, and when he reached a group of five or six people sitting on the porch of a post office in a small Texas town, he stopped his horse and got out.

“My friends,” he said, “you all look intelligent people, and I consider it my duty to say a few words concerning the terrible and disgraceful state of things which is observed in this part of the country. I refer to the nightmarish barbarity that has recently been displayed in some of the most cultured cities in Texas, when human beings created in the image and likeness of the Creator were subjected to cruel torture and then brutally burned alive in the most crowded streets. Something needs to be done to erase this stain from your state's clean name. Don't you agree with me?

Are you from Galveston, stranger? - asked one of the people.

No sir. I am from Massachusetts, the cradle of freedom of the unfortunate Negroes and the nursery of their most ardent defenders. These bonfires of men make us cry tears of blood, and I am here to try to awaken compassion in your hearts for your black brothers.

And you will not repent of calling upon fire to bring about the painful administration of justice?

Not at all.

And you will continue to subject blacks to a terrible death at the stake?

If circumstances force it.

In that case, gentlemen, since your determination is unshakable, I want to offer you several gross matches, cheaper than which you have never seen before. Take a look and see for yourself. Full guarantee. They do not go out in any wind and ignite on anything: wood, brick, glass, cast iron, iron and soles. How many boxes would you like, gentlemen?

The Colonel's Romance

They sat by the fireplace smoking pipes. Their thoughts began to turn to the distant past.

The conversation touched on the places where they spent their youth, and the changes that the passing years brought with them. All of them had lived in Houston for a long time, but only one of them was a native of Texas.

The colonel came from Alabama, the judge was born on the swampy banks of the Mississippi, the grocer saw the light of day for the first time in frozen Maine, and the mayor proudly declared that his homeland was Tennessee.

Have any of you guys gone home on leave since you moved here? - asked the colonel.

It turned out that the judge had been home twice in twenty years, the mayor once, and the grocer never.

It's a funny feeling, said the Colonel, to visit the places where you grew up after an absence of fifteen years. Seeing people you haven't seen for so long is like seeing ghosts. As for me, I visited Crosstree, Alabama, exactly fifteen years after I left there. I will never forget the impression this visit made on me.

There once lived in Crosstree a girl whom I loved more than anyone in the world. One fine day I slipped away from my friends and headed to the grove where I had once often walked with her. I walked along the paths where our feet walked. The oak trees on both sides remained almost unchanged. The little blue flowers could have been the same ones that she wove into her hair when she came out to meet me.

We especially loved walking along a row of thick laurels, behind which a tiny stream gurgled. Everything was exactly the same. No change tormented my heart. The same huge sycamores and poplars towered above me; the same river ran; my feet walked along the same path along which we often walked with her. It seemed that if I waited, she would definitely come, walking lightly in the darkness, with her star eyes and chestnut curls, as loving as ever. It seemed to me then that nothing could separate us - no doubt, no misunderstanding, no lie. But - who can know?

I reached the end of the path. There was a large hollow tree in which we left notes for each other. How many sweet things this tree could tell, if only it could! I thought that after the clicks and blows of life, my heart had hardened - but it turned out that this was not the case.

I looked into the hollow and saw something white in its depths. It was a folded piece of paper, yellow and dusty with age. I unfolded it and had difficulty reading it.

"My beloved Richard! You know that I will marry you if that is what you want. Come early this evening and I will give you an answer better than in the letter. Yours and only yours Nelly."

Gentlemen, I stood there holding that little piece of paper in my hand, as if in a dream. I wrote to her, asking her to become my wife, and offered to put the answer in the hollow of an old tree. She obviously did so, but I did not find him in the dark, and all these years have rushed by since then over this tree and this leaf...

The listeners were silent. The mayor wiped his eyes, and the judge grunted funny. They were old people now, but they also knew love in their youth.

That's when, said the grocer, you went to Texas and never saw her again?

No,” said the colonel, “when I did not come to them that night, she sent my father to me, and two months later we got married.” She and five guys are at my house now. Pass the tobacco, please.
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Copyright: short stories OH HENRY

O. Henry(English O. Henry, real name William Sydney Porter, English William Sydney Porter) is a recognized master of the American short story. His short stories are characterized by subtle humor and unexpected endings.

William Sydney Porter born September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At the age of three, he lost his mother, who died of tuberculosis. Later he came under the care of his paternal aunt. After school, I studied to become a pharmacist and worked in my uncle’s pharmacy. Three years later he moved to Texas and tried different professions- worked on a ranch, served in the land department. Then he worked as a cashier and bookkeeper at a bank in the Texas city of Austin.

The first literary experiments date back to the early 1880s. In 1894, Porter began publishing the humorous weekly Rolling Stone in Austin, filling it almost entirely with his own essays, jokes, poems and drawings. A year later, the magazine closed, and at the same time Porter was fired from the bank and taken to court in connection with the shortfall, although it was reimbursed by his family.

After being accused of embezzlement, he hid from law enforcement officers in Honduras for six months, then in South America. Upon returning to the United States, he was convicted and sent to prison in Columbus, Ohio, where he spent three years (1898-1901).

In prison, Porter worked in the infirmary and wrote stories, looking for a pseudonym. In the end, he chose the version of O. Henry (often incorrectly spelled like the Irish surname O'Henry - O'Henry). Its origin is not entirely clear. The writer himself claimed in an interview that the name Henry was taken from the society news column in the newspaper, and the initial O. was chosen as the simplest letter. He told one of the newspapers that O. stands for Olivier ( French name Olivier), and indeed, he published several stories there under the name Olivier Henry. According to other sources, this is the name of the famous French pharmacist Etienne Ocean Henry, whose medical reference book was popular at that time. Another hypothesis was put forward by writer and scientist Guy Davenport: “Oh. Henry" is nothing more than an abbreviation of the name of the prison where the author was imprisoned - Ohio Penitentiary. He wrote his first story under this pseudonym, “Dick the Whistler's Christmas Gift,” published in 1899 in McClure's Magazine.

O. Henry's only novel, Cabbages and Kings, was published in 1904. It was followed by collections of stories: The Four Million (1906), The Trimmed Lamp (1907), Heart of the West (1907), The Voice of the City of the City, 1908), The Gentle Grafter (1908), Roads of Destiny (1909), Options (1909), Strictly Business (1910) and "Whirling" (Whirligigs, 1910).

At the end of his life, O. Henry suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes. The writer died on June 5, 1910 in New York.

The collection “Postscripts”, published after the death of O. Henry, included feuilletons, sketches and humorous notes written by him for the newspaper “Post” (Houston, Texas, 1895-1896). In total, O. Henry wrote 273 stories, full meeting his works comprise 18 volumes.

American novelist O. Henry (real name William Sydney Porter) born September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is the author of over two hundred and eighty stories, sketches, and humoresques. William Porter's life has been sad since childhood. At the age of three he lost his mother, and his father, a provincial doctor, became a widower, began drinking and soon turned into a useless alcoholic.

After leaving school, fifteen-year-old Billy Porter stood behind the pharmacy counter. Working surrounded by cough syrup and flea powders had a detrimental effect on his already compromised health.

In 1882, Billy went to Texas, lived on a ranch for two years, and then settled in Austin, working in the land department, as a cashier and bookkeeper at a bank. Nothing good came of his banking career. Porter was accused of embezzling $1,150, a very significant amount at that time. The writer's biographers still argue whether he was actually guilty. On the one hand, he needed money for the treatment of his sick wife (and for the publication of Rolling Stone), on the other hand, the cashier Porter resigned from the bank in December 1894, while the embezzlement was revealed only in 1895, and the owners of the bank were unclean hand. A criminal case was opened against Porter, and in February 1896 he fled in panic to New Orleans, and from there to Honduras. In this country, fate brought Porter together with a pleasant gentleman - professional bandit-robber Ell Jennings.
Much later, Jennings, putting aside his revolver, took up his pen and created memoirs in which he recalled interesting episodes of Latin American adventures. The friends took part in the local Honduran coup, then fled to Mexico, where Jennings saved the future writer from certain death. Porter carelessly courted some married woman; the husband, who was somewhere nearby, a macho Mexican, took out a knife with a blade two feet long and wanted to defend his honor. Jennings settled the situation - he shot the jealous man in the head with a shot from the hip, after which he and William mounted their horses, and the conflict was left behind.
In Mexico, Porter received a telegram informing him that his beloved wife, Atoll Estes, was dying. During her husband’s absence, she had no means of subsistence, was starving, and having fallen ill, she could not buy medicine, but on the eve of Christmas she sold a lace cape for twenty-five dollars and sent Bill a gift in Mexico City - a gold watch chain. Unfortunately, it was at that moment that Porter sold his watch to buy a train ticket. He managed to see and say goodbye to his wife. A few days later she died. Police agents with a plaintive bandage walked silently behind the coffin. Immediately after the funeral, they arrested the cashier-embezzler, who did not say a single word in court and received five years in prison.

Porter spent three years and three months in exile. Released early (for exemplary behavior and good job in the prison pharmacy) in the summer of 1901. He never remembered his prison years. Ell Jennings’ memories helped that, ironically, he again found himself side by side with the writer in a convict prison in Columbus, Ohio.

Sitting with Porter and Jennings was a twenty-year-old “safecracker” (safecracker) Wild Price. He did a good job - he saved the little daughter of a wealthy businessman from a safe that suddenly closed. Price cut off his nails with a knife and opened the top-secret lock in twelve seconds. They promised him a pardon, but they deceived him. Based on this plot, Porter wrote his first story - about the burglar Jimmy Valentine, who saved his fiancee's niece from a fireproof cabinet. The story, unlike Dick Price's, had a happy ending.

Before sending the story to the newspaper, Porter read it to his fellow inmates. Ell Jennings recalled: “From the moment Porter began to read in his low, velvety, slightly stuttering voice, there was dead silence. We absolutely froze, holding our breath. Finally, the robber Reidler sighed loudly, and Porter, as if waking up from a dream, looked at us.” Reidler smiled and began to rub his eyes with his crippled hand. “Damn you, Porter, this is the first time in my life, God punish me if I knew what a tear looks like!” The stories were not immediately accepted for publication. The next three were published under a pseudonym.

While in prison, Porter was embarrassed to publish under his own name. In a pharmacy reference book, he came across the name of the then famous French pharmacist O. Henri. It is her in the same transcription, but in English pronunciation(O. Henry) the writer chose as his pseudonym for the rest of his life. Coming out of the prison gates, he uttered a phrase that has been quoted for, if not a century: “The prison could do great service society, if society chose who to put there."

At the end of 1903, O. Henry signed a contract with the New York newspaper "World" for the weekly delivery of a short Sunday story - one hundred dollars per work. This fee was quite large at that time. The writer's annual earnings were equal to the profits of popular American novelists.

But the frantic pace of work could kill even more healthy person, than O. Henry, who could not refuse other periodicals. During 1904, O. Henry published sixty-six stories, and in 1905 - sixty-four. Sometimes, sitting in the editorial office, he would finish writing two stories at once, and the editorial artist would shift nearby, waiting to start illustrating.

Readers of the American newspaper could not cope with large texts, they could not stand philosophizing and tragic stories. O. Henry began to lack stories, and in the future he more often borrowed, or even bought them from friends and acquaintances. Gradually he began to get tired and slowed down. However, 273 stories came from his pen - over thirty stories in a year. The stories enriched newspapermen and publishers, but not O. Henry himself, an impractical man who was accustomed to a semi-bohemian life. He never bargained, never found out anything. He silently received his money, thanked him and went: “I owe Mr. Gilman Hall, according to him, 175 dollars. I think I owe him no more than 30 dollars. But he can count, but I can’t...”.

He avoided the societies of his literary brothers-in-arms, strove for solitude, shunned social gatherings, and did not give interviews. For several days without good reason wandered around New York, then locked the door of the room and wrote.

In wandering and alienation, he recognized and “digested” the big city, Babylon-on-the-Hudson, Baghdad-over-the-subway - its sounds and lights, hope and tears, sensation and failure. He was a poet of the New York bottom and the lowest social strata, a dreamer and visionary of brick back streets. In the dull quarters of Harlem and Coney Island, by the will of O. Henry, Cinderellas and Don Quixotes, Harun al-Rashids and Diogenes appeared, who were always ready to come to the rescue of those who were dying, in order to provide a realistic story with an unexpected ending.

O. Henry spent the last week of his life alone, in a squalid hotel room. He was sick, drank a lot, and could no longer work. At the forty-eighth year of his life in a New York hospital, he passed into another world, unlike his heroes, without receiving miraculous help.

The writer's funeral resulted in a real Henryian plot. During the funeral service, a cheerful wedding party burst into the church, and did not immediately realize that they would have to wait at the entrance.

O. Henry could be called a kind of belated romantic, an American storyteller of the 20th century, but the nature of his unique short story creativity is broader than these definitions. Humanism, independent democracy, vigilance of the artist, social conditions in his time, his humor and comedy prevailed over satire, and his “comforting” optimism over bitterness and indignation. It was they who created a unique novelistic portrait of New York at the dawn of the monopoly era - a diverse, attractive, mysterious and cruel metropolis with its four million “little Americans.” The reader's interest and sympathy for the ups and downs of life, clerks, saleswomen, barge haulers, unknown artists, poets, actresses, cowboys, small adventurers, farmers, and the like, is considered a special gift, which is characteristic of O. Henry as a storyteller. The image that appears as if before our eyes is frankly conventional, acquires a fleeting illusory authenticity - and remains forever in memory. In the poetics of O. Henry's short story there is a very important element of acute theatricality, which is undoubtedly connected with his worldview as a fatalist who blindly believes in Chance or Fate. Freeing his heroes from “global” thoughts and decisions, O. Henry never turns them away from moral guidelines: in his small world There are strong laws of ethics and humanity, even among those characters whose actions do not always agree with the laws. The language of his short story is extremely rich, associative and inventive, full of parodic passages, illusions, hidden quotes and all sorts of puns that pose extremely difficult tasks for translators - after all, it is in the language of O. Henry that the “formative ferment” of his style is contained. For all its originality, O. Henry's short story is a purely American phenomenon, which grew out of the national literary tradition (from E. Poe to B. Hart and M. Twain).

Letters and an unfinished manuscript indicate that recent years O. Henry's life approached a new milestone. He craved “simple, honest prose,” and sought to free himself from certain stereotypes and the “Rosy Endings” that the commercial press, oriented toward bourgeois tastes, expected from him.

Most of his stories, which were published in periodicals, were included in collections that were published during his lifetime: “Four Million” (1906), “The Burning Lamp” (1907), “The Heart of the West” (1907), “The Voice of the City” ( 1908), “The Noble Rogue” (1908), “The Road of Fate” (1909), “To Choose from” (1909), “Business People” (1910), “Broomrape” (1910). More than a dozen collections were published posthumously. The novel "Kings and Cabbages" (1904) consists of a conventionally connected plot of adventurously humorous short stories, the action of which takes place in Latin America.

The fate of O. Henry's inheritance was no less difficult than the personal fate of W. S. Porter. After a decade of fame, the time has come for a ruthless critical reassessment of value - a reaction to the type of "well-made story." However, approximately from the end of the 50s of the last century in the United States, literary interest in the work and biography of the writer was again revived. As for the reader's love for him, it is unchanged: O. Henry, as before, occupies a permanent place among the authors who are loved to be reread in many countries of the world.

William Sidney Porter, known under the creative pseudonym O. Henry, is famous for his stories filled with humor and always an unexpected, bright ending. Despite the writer’s optimism on the pages of the short stories, his life from childhood was difficult and sad.

A century later, among fans of the literary talent of O. Henry and modern critics W. S. Porter is considered the standard of subtle humor and sarcasm. And the story “The Leader of the Redskins” - business card O. Henry has become one of the most popular in the world. However, not only humorous stories wrote William Porter - the short story “The Last Leaf” became an example of sentimentality.

William himself did not consider himself a genius; on the contrary, the writer was modest and critical of his works. O. Henry's creative dream was to create a full-fledged novel, but it was not destined to come true.

Childhood and youth

William Sidney Porter was born to Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter on September 11, 1862. The parents of the future writer got married on April 20, 1958, and 7 years later the mother of the future writer died of tuberculosis.

William was barely 3 years old when widowed Algernon Sidney Porter took him to live with his grandmother. Soon the father, unable to recover from the loss of his wife, began to drink, stopped caring for his son, settled in the outbuilding and free time dedicated to the invention of the “perpetual motion machine.”

WITH early childhood left without mother's love and worries, the boy found solace in books. William read everything: from classics to women's novels. The young man’s favorite works were the Arabic and Persian fairy tales “The Arabian Nights” and the English prose in the baroque style by Robert Burton “The Anatomy of Melancholy” in 3 volumes. Favorites literary works young William influenced the writer’s work.

After the death of his mother, his father's sister Evelina Maria Porter took over the upbringing of little William. It was the aunt who owned her own private primary school, instilled in the future writer a love of literature. Having received his secondary education at Lindsay Street School, William did not cheat family traditions and got a job in a pharmacy that belonged to his uncle. In August 1881, young Porter received his pharmacist's license. While continuing to work at the pharmacy, he demonstrated his natural artistic talents by painting portraits of townspeople.

In March 1882, William, plagued by a debilitating cough, traveled to Texas, accompanied by physician James C. Hall, hoping that a change in climate would help young man restore health. Porter settled on the ranch of Richard Hall, son of Dr. James, in La Salle County. Richard raised sheep, and William helped herd the flocks, run the ranch, and even cook dinners.

During this period, the future writer studied the dialects of Spanish and German languages through interactions with ranch workers who immigrated from other countries. In his free time, William read classical literature.

Porter's health soon improved. In 1884, the young man went with Richard to the city of Austin, where he decided to stay and settled with Richard's friends, Joseph Harrell and his wife. Porter lived with the Harrells for three years. In Austin, William got a job at the pharmaceutical company Morley Brothers as a pharmacist, and then moved to the Harrell Cigar Store. During this period, William began to write, first for fun, and then more and more passionately.

In a short period of time, Porter changed many positions and jobs: the young man worked as a cashier, accountant, and draftsman. It was in Harrell's house that the aspiring writer created a number of early novellas and short stories.

William's comrade Richard Hall became Texas commissioner and offered Porter the vacancy. Future writer started as a drawing specialist in the land administration. The salary was enough for the family not to need anything, but the man at the same time continued to engage in literary creativity as a part-time job.

On January 21, 1891, William resigned immediately after winning the election of new governor Jim Hogg. While working as a draftsman, William began developing characters and plots for the stories "Georgia's Decree" and "The Treasure."

At the same time, William got a job at a bank that was located in Austin, as a cashier and accountant. Porter appeared to be casually filling out the books accounting, and in 1894 he was accused of embezzlement. William lost his job, but was not officially charged at the time.

After his dismissal, Porter moved to the city of Houston, where the writer devoted himself to creativity. At the same time, federal auditors examined the Austin bank and discovered shortfalls that led to the writer's dismissal. A federal indictment followed, and William was soon arrested on embezzlement charges.

William's father posted bail to keep his son out of prison. The trial was scheduled for July 7, 1896, but on the eve of the trial, the impulsive William fled first to New Orleans and then to Honduras. William lived there for only six months, until January 1897. There he befriended Al Jennings, a notorious train robber who later wrote a book about their friendship.

In 1897, William returned to the United States after learning of his wife's illness. On February 17, 1898, a trial was held at which the writer was found guilty of embezzlement of $854.08 and sentenced to 5 years in prison. Given that Porter was a licensed pharmacist, he was able to work in the prison hospital as a night pharmacist. He was given a private room in the hospital wing, and in prison cell he didn't spend even a day.

On July 24, 1901, for good behavior after serving three years, Porter was released and reunited with his daughter. For 11-year-old Margaret, her father was on a business trip all this time.

Literature

Porter got his first literary experience in the 1880s as publisher of the humorous weekly magazine The Rolling Stone, but 1 year later the magazine ceased to exist due to insufficient funding. However, his letters and drawings caught the attention of an editor at the Houston Post.

In 1895, Porter and his family moved to Houston, where he began writing for publication in periodicals. His income was only $25 a month, but it steadily increased as the popularity of the young writer's work grew. Porter collected ideas for his pieces by walking around hotel lobbies, observing and talking to people. He used this technique throughout his career.

While hiding from arrest in Honduras at a Trujillo hotel, Porter wrote a book, Kings and Cabbages, in which he coined the term "banana republic" to describe the country. The phrase later became widely used to describe a small, unstable country with an agrarian economy.

After his arrest, in prison, William wrote 14 more stories under various pseudonyms. One of the stories, “Dick Whistler's Christmas Stocking,” was published in the December 1899 issue of McClure magazine under the pseudonym O. Henry. A friend of William's in New Orleans sent his stories to publishers so that they would not realize that the writer was serving a prison sentence.

Porter's most fruitful creative period began in 1902, when he moved to New York. There the writer created 381 stories. For more than a year, O. Henry's stories were published weekly in issues of the New York World Sunday Magazine. His wit, character types, and plot twists delighted readers, but critics often treated William's work rather coolly.

Personal life

As a young bachelor, William led active image life in Austin. He was known for his wit, oratory skills and musical talents: he played the guitar and mandolin. In addition, William sang in the choir at St. David's Episcopal Church and even became a member of the Hill City Quartet, a group of young people who gave small citywide concerts.

In 1885, while laying the cornerstone of the Texas State Capitol, the charming William Porter met Athol Estes, a 17-year-old girl from a wealthy family. Athol's mother sharply objected to the union of young people and even forbade her daughter to see William. But soon the lovers, secretly from the Estes family, got married in the church of Rev. R. K. Sout, pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church.

After the wedding, young people often took part in musical and theatrical productions, and it was Athol who encouraged her husband to continue writing. In 1888, Athol gave birth to a boy who lived only a few hours, and a year later to a daughter, Margaret Worth Porter.

After Porter was accused of embezzlement, William fled the United States to Honduras, where he continued to write. At first, the couple planned that Atol and his daughter would soon join him. However, the woman’s health did not allow her to go on such a long and difficult journey. When word reached William that Athol was seriously ill, Porter returned to Austin in February 1897 and surrendered to law enforcement officers.

Six months later, Athol Porter died. The cause of the woman’s death was tuberculosis, from which the writer’s mother also died. In memory of his beloved wife, William has only family photo, where the writer is depicted with Athol and his daughter Margaret.

In 1907, Porter remarried Sarah (Sally) Lindsay Coleman, whom William had liked since his youth. Sarah Lindsay Coleman later wrote a romantic fictional version of their correspondence and William's courtship in her novella The Winds of Destiny. A number of authors later wrote more reliable versions of the biography famous writer.

Death

During his life, William Porter had problems associated with alcohol abuse, which worsened towards the end of the writer’s life and did not allow William to work fully. In 1909, Porter's second wife Sarah left him, and on June 5, 1910, the writer died. The cause of death of William Porter was cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes.

Eight years later, an annual literary prize for best story named after O. Henry. Other writers also became winners of the prize. And in 2010, a new literary award named after O. Henry appeared called “The Gifts of the Magi,” which is a competition of short stories and short stories in Russian in best traditions William Porter. Among its laureates are Evgeny Mamontov and others.

The daughter of the famous writer Margaret followed in her father's footsteps. The girl was studying literary activity from 1913 to 1916. Eleven years later, Margaret died of tuberculosis.

Bibliography

• 1906 – “Four Million”
• 1907 – “The Burning Lamp”
• 1907 – “Heart of the West”
• 1908 – “The Noble Rogue”
• 1908 – “Voice of the Big City”
• 1909 – “Roads of Destiny”
• 1909 – “To choose from”
• 1910 – “Rotation”
• 1910 – “Business People”
• 1910 – “Sixes and Sevens”
• 1910 – “Under a lying stone”
• 1910 – “Leftovers” or “A Little Bit of Everything”