Elizabeth Fulton, age 15, of McAllen, Texas, for her question:
WHO WAS O. HENRY?
O. Henry was the pen name of a famous American writer who lived from 1826 until 1910. His real name was William Sydney Porter.
In nearly all of the 150 works of fiction turned out by O. Henry, there was shown the writer's mastery of mechanical plots which built up to sharp, unexpected endings. Most of his stories are sentimental rather than psychologically deep. Yet his sympathy for human weakness and the naturalness of his characters make his stories very appealing.
O. Henry wrote in the language of the man on the street. One of his most famous stories is called "The Gift of the Magi."
The writer was born in Greensboro, N.C., and dropped out of public school when he was 15 to work in his uncle's drugstore. He then went to Texas and worked on a ranch for two years.
Later O. Henry moved to Austin, Texas, where he was a bank clerk for a while. Then he started to write short articles, some of which appeared in the Detroit Free Press.
In 1894 he bought a paper called the "Iconoclast" and renamed it "The Rolling Stone." A year later he moved to Houston, Texas, where he wrote for another newspaper.
Trouble came in 1896 when he was called back to Austin to stand trial on a charge of stealing money from the bank. He might have been pardoned because his errors were caused by loose bookkeeping rather than criminal intent. But he ran away to Honduras instead of having his name cleared.
When he returned to Austin to the deathbed of his wife, he was arrested and imprisoned for three years. Using various pen names, he wrote and published a number of short stories while he was in prison. After he was released, he moved to New York City where he became a full time writer.
O. Henry published about 14 volumes of stories, reflecting his own colorful experiences and those of his associates. The models of some of his best known characters were criminals and soldiers of fortune.
Many of 0. Henry's stories tell about victims of coincidence or fate. An example is "The Furnished Room." In this story, a man comes to New York to look for his sweetheart who came to town for a singing career. He rents a room where he commits suicide after being unable to find the girl. The man never learns that his sweetheart had earlier killed herself in that same room.
Certainly not all of O. Henry's works were on such tragic themes.
Some of O. Henry's other works include "Cabbages and Kings," which was published in 1904, "The Trimmed Lamp," which came out in 1907, "Heart of the West," also published in 1907 and "The Gentle Grafter," written in 1908.
"Roads of Destiny" and "Opinions" were published in 1909 while "Strictly Business" and "Whirligigs" came out the next year. "Sixes and Sevens" was published in 1911 while "Waifs and Strays" came out in 1917. The complete works of O. Henry were published in 14 volumes in 1917.