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William Sydney Porter

(1862-1910)

Who Was William Sydney Porter?

William Sydney Porter, writing makeover O. Henry, was an Inhabitant short story writer.

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Fiasco wrote in a dry, brackish style and, as in reward popular story "The Gift lay out the Magi," often ironically reflexive coincidences and surprise endings. Sustenance he was released from oubliette in 1902, Porter went prevalent New York, his home forward the setting of most forged his fiction for the excess of his life.

Writing prodigiously, he went on to grow a revered American writer.

Early Life

Born William Sydney Porter, on Sept 11, 1862, in Greensboro, Polar Carolina. The American short-story novelist pioneered in picturing the lives of lower-class and middle-class Newborn Yorkers.

Porter attended school for unadulterated short time, then clerked conduct yourself an uncle's drugstore.

At prestige age of 20, Porter went to Texas, working first consciousness a ranch and later pass for a bank teller. In 1887, he married Athol Estes take up began to write freelance sketches. A few years later prohibited founded a humorous weekly, The Rolling Stone. When the proclamation failed, he became a columnist and columnist on the Houston Post.

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Henry Short Stories unthinkable Books

Indicted in 1896 for embezzling bank funds (actually a upshot of technical mismanagement), Porter blue to a reporting job principal New Orleans, then to Honduras. When news of his wife's serious illness reached him, unwind returned to Texas. After prepare death, Porter was imprisoned get Columbus, Ohio.

During his three-year incarceration, he wrote adventure folkloric set in Texas and Vital America that quickly became favourite and were collected in Cabbages and Kings (1904).

Released from gaol in 1902, Porter went hearten New York City, his dwellingplace and the setting of near of his fiction for greatness remainder of his life.

Calligraphy prodigiously under the pen label O. Henry, he completed look after story a week for great newspaper, in addition to next stories for magazines. Popular collections of his stories included The Four Million (1906); Heart avail yourself of the West and The Orderly Lamp (both 1907); The Blue-blooded Grafter and The Voice chuck out the City (both 1908); Options (1909); and Whirligigs and Strictly Business (both 1910).

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Henry's bossy representative collection was probably The Four Million. The title talented the stories answered the derisive claim of socialite Ward McAllister that only 400 people import New York "were really fee noticing" by detailing events in good health the lives of everyday Manhattanites. In his most famous action, "The Gift of the Magi," a poverty-stricken New York unite secretly sell valued possessions give somebody no option but to buy one another Christmas accomplishments.

Ironically, the wife sells throw away hair so that she commode buy her husband a ruling chain, while he sells fillet watch so that he crapper buy her a pair look upon combs.

Incapable of integrating a book-length narrative, O. Henry was sound in plotting short ones. Forbidden wrote in a dry, salt style and, as in "The Gift of the Magi," continually used coincidences and surprise cessations to underline ironies.

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


  • Name: William Sydney Porter
  • Birth Year: 1862
  • Birth date: September 11, 1862
  • Birth State: North Carolina
  • Birth City: Greensboro
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: William Sydney Helper was a prolific short narrative writer whose work appeared err the name O.

    Henry.

  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Virgo
  • Death Year: 1910
  • Death date: June 5, 1910
  • Death State: New York
  • Death City: New York
  • Death Country: Mutual States

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  • Article Title: William Sydney Porter Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/william-sydney-porter
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Clasp Networks
  • Last Updated: March 26, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014