William Sydney Porter will be forever remembered in America’s literary past as the master of the short story. Under his pen name, O. Henry, he wrote over 600 short stories that have been published around the world. He is generally considered to be America’s most widely read author behind Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe. His gift for story telling and plot twists made him the beloved author most of the “common man” at the turn of the 20th Century. But, perhaps Porter’s most interesting story is the one he never fully told—his own.

Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. His parents were Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter, a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swain Porter. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, and he and his father moved into the home of his paternal grandmother. His grandmother was an educated woman and introduced Porter to books. He began reading at age four and devoured any work he could get his hands on. Porter’s father was an alcoholic and was generally absent from his life. Porter graduated from his aunt’s elementary school in 1876. He then enrolled at the Lindsey Street High School. His aunt continued to tutor him until he was fifteen. In 1879, he started working in his uncle’s drugstore and in 1881, at the age of nineteen, he became a licensed as a pharmacist.

During this time, Porter had developed a persistant cough that local doctors had attributed to the North Carolina humidity. It was thought that a drier climate might be of benefit. So Porter traveled to Texas and took up residence on a sheep ranch of family friend, Richard Hall. He worked as a ranch hand. It was here that he formed many of his ideas of the West that he would one day write about in his collection of Western stories.

Porter left the ranch and moved to Austin, TX and worked several odd jobs, including bank teller. At this time, writing became a full time hobby. Porter also led an active social life in Austin, including membership in singing and drama groups. Porter met and began courting Athol Estes, then seventeen years old and from a wealthy family. Her mother objected to the match because Athol was ill, suffering from tuberculosis. On July 1, 1887, Porter and Athol eloped. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died hours after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, in September 1889.

Porter’s friend Richard Hall became Texas Land Commissioner and offered Porter a job. Porter took the job as a draftsman and worked at the General Land Office until Hall lost his bid for Governor, which cost Porter his job. He then found work as a bank teller and bookkeeper at the First National Bank of Austin. The bank is widely remembered to be poorly managed and Porter, ever the artist, was no bookkeeper. In 1894, the bank had hit rocky times and accused Porter of embezzlement. He lost his job but charges were not formally pressed.

Following his dismissal, Porter began working full time on his own weekly publication, The Rolling Stone, which he started while working at the bank. The Rolling Stone featured satire on life, people and politics and included Porter’s short stories and sketches. The publication failed in April 1895, but Porter’s work had caught the attention of the editor at the Houston Post. Porter and his family moved to Houston in 1895, where he started writing for the Post. While he was in Houston, the First National Bank of Austin was audited and the federal auditors found several discrepancies. They managed to get a federal indictment against Porter. He was subsequently arrested on charges of embezzlement, charges which he denied, in connection with his employment at the bank. In the eyes of many, Porter was used as a scapegoat for the bank’s troubles.

The day before Porter was due to stand trial on July 7, 1896, he fled, first to New Orleans and later to Honduras. While holed up in a Tegucigalpa hotel for several months, he wrote Cabbages and Kings, in which he coined the term “banana republic” to describe the country. During this time Porter made friends with a bank robber by the name of Al Jennings and it was rumored that Porter, himself, was an accomplice to Jennings on his heists. This was strongly denied by Jennings himself, as he wrote in his 1921 book, “Through the Shadows with O. Henry”:

“We decided to invite Bill into a little banking venture. If you had seen Bill Porter’s face and the helpless surprise that scooted across it you would believe, as I do, that he was never guilty of that theft that sent him to Ohio Penitentiary. He had neither the recklessness or the sangfroid of a lawbreaker. When asked if he would join our financial undertaking, he replied “No! I don’t think I could.”

I then said, “But you could hold the horses, couldn’t you?”

Bill replied, “No. I don’t believe I could even hold the horses.”

Porter had sent Athol and Margaret back to Austin to live with Athol’s parents. Unfortunately, Athol became too ill to meet Porter in Honduras as Porter planned. When he learned that his wife was dying, Porter returned to Austin in February 1897 and surrendered to the court, pending an appeal. Athol Porter died from tuberculosis on July 25, 1897. Porter, in shock over the loss mounted no defense to his charges and was found guilty of embezzlement in February 1898 and sentenced to five years jail at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio.

While in prison, Porter, as a licensed pharmacist, worked in the prison hospital as the night druggist. Porter was given his own room in the hospital wing, and there is no record that he actually spent time in the cell block of the prison. It was here in the confines of the Ohio Penitentiary that Porter’s career as an writer began to blossom. Writing under the pseudonym O. Henry, he was first published in McClure’s Magazine in December of 1899. Porter would send his stories to a friend in New Orleans, who would forward his stories to various publishers, never acknowledging the author was a prisoner. It is the source of much debate how Porter came to use the O. Henry name. Porter himself said the name was simply an abbreviation of a common name. Others said it the letters were pulled from “Ohio Penitentiary” or even a warden named Orrin Henry. It was never fully known.

Porter was released for good behavior in 1901, after serving three years. He reunited with his daughter Margaret, now age 11, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Athol’s parents had moved after Porter’s conviction. Margaret was never told that her father had been in prison – just that he had been away on business.

In 1902, Porter moved to New York City to be near his publishers and enjoyed the most prolific period of writing in his career, writing 381 short stories. He wrote a story a week for over a year for the Sunday Magazine of the New York World. His wit, characterization and plot twists were adored by his readers, but often shunned by critics. Like many artists, Porter had trouble dealing with the increased expectations (and criticisms) his success had brought and began drinking heavily.

His health began to deteriorate in 1908, which affected his writing. Hew new wife, Sarah, left him in 1909, and Porter died on June 5, 1910, of cirrhosis of the liver, complications of diabetes and an enlarged heart. He died penniless. After funeral services in New York City, he was buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, died in 1927 and was buried with her father.

Porter’s writings have influenced literature for the last century. His most famous works, such as “Gift of the Magi”, “The Ransom of Red Chief”, and “The Last of the Troubadours” have been retold and rewritten in various forms by countless authors. But, even today little is know of the man behind the O. Henry pseudonym. His life reads like a story he may have written, an entertaining yarn the blends fact and fiction, with the onus on the reader to make distinctions between the two.

Tags: Gift of the Magi, Last of the Troubadours, O. Henry, Ransom of Red Chief, short stories, William Sydney Porter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 9:50 am and is filed under Profiles. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.