Biography of O. Henry
Biography of O. Henry |
• Name: William Sidney Porter.
• Born: 11 September 1862, Greensboro, North Carolina.
• Father: Dr. Algernon Sydney Porter.
• Mother: Mary Jane Virginia Swim Porter.
• wife husband : .
Early life of William Sidney Porter:
William Sidney Porter was born on September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. He changed his middle name to Spelling in Sydney in 1898. His parents Drs. Algernon was Sidney Porter (1825–88), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter (1833–65). William's parents married on April 20, 1858. When William was three years old, his mother died after the birth of their third child, and he and his father moved to their maternal grandfather's house. As a child, Porter was always reading, everything from classics to dime novels; His favorite compositions were Lane the One Thousand and One Nights and a translation of Burton's Anatomy of Melancholi.
Porter graduated in 1876 from his aunt Ivelina Maria Porter's primary school. He then enrolled at Lindsey High School. His aunt continued to tutor him till the age of 15. In 1879, he began working at his uncle's drugstore in Greensboro and licensed Porter as a pharmacist on August 30, 1881 at the age of 19. At the drugstore, he showed his natural artistic talent by pulling out bunches of towns.
In February 1896, he was charged with embezzlement of bank funds. Friends gave information about his flight to Honduras. However, news of his wife's fatal illness drove him back to Austin, and liberal officials did not press his case until after his death. When convicted, Porter received the mildest punishment possible, and in 1898 he entered the peninsula in Columbus, Ohio; His sentence for good behavior was reduced to three years and three months. As a night druggist in a prison hospital, he could write to earn money to support his daughter Margaret. Southwestern U.S. And his adventures in Central America became immediately popular with magazine readers, and when he came out of prison, WS. Porter had become O. Henry.
In 1902 o. Henry arrives in New York - his "Baghdad on the subway". From December 1903 to January 1906 he produced a story a week for New York World, which also wrote for magazines. His first book, Cabbage and Kings (1904) depicts fantastic characters against an exotic Honduran backdrop. Both The Four Million (1906) and The Trimmed Lamp (1907) explore the lives of the New York crowd in search of their daily routines and romance and adventure. Heart of the West (1907) presented accurate and engaging stories of the Texas Range.
O. Henry moved to Texas in March of 1882 and hoped to get rid of the persistent cough. While living there, he took up residence in a sheep farm, shepherding, cooking, babysitting and learning bits of Spanish and German from many migrant farmhands. He had an active social life in Austin and was a skilled musician with guitar and mandolin. Over the next several years, Porter - as he was still known - did many different things, from pharmacy to drafting, journalism and banking.
Here is where the twist and turn actually began. Banking, in particular, was not O. Henry's calling; He was quite careless with his bookkeeping, was fired by the bank and charged with embezzlement in 1894. His father-in-law posted bail for him, but he fled before trial in 1896, first in New Orleans, then Honduras, where there was no extradition treaty. He befriended a notorious train robber, Al Jennings, who later wrote a book about their friendship. O. Henry sent his wife and daughter back to Texas, after which he played Holi at a hotel to write his first collection of short stories, Cabbage a Kings, published in 1904.