He started life as William Sydney Porter on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina, the son of a physician. An early job included work in an uncle's drugstore, and in August 1879 he became a licensed pharmacist. By 1882 he was living in Texas, where he hoped the climate would ease a persistent cough. There he met his first wife Athol; together they had two children. He worked at various jobs, including draftsman of maps and surveys for the Texas General Land Office and then bank clerk in Austin. He continued writing the kind of sketches and satires he had begun in North Carolina.
Porter was fired from his bank job when an audit turned up shortages. He moved to Houston and began writing for the Post newspaper. Unfortunately, a federal audit at the Austin bank revealed the embezzlement, and Porter was indicted. On the eve of the trial he fled to New Orleans and then Honduras. During six months in that country he wrote the interlocking stories that became his novel Cabbages and Kings, set in a fictitious Central American country and published in 1904.
Porter learned his wife was dying of tuberculosis, and he returned to Austin in February 1897; Athol died in July. In February 1898 Porter was convicted of embezzling $854.08 and his sentence of five years began the following month. He served as night druggist at the prison hospital, where he had his own room. He was released early, on July 24, 1901, having been a model prisoner.
He had continued to write, publishing stories under a variety of pseudonyms. The first one that appeared under "O. Henry", the name Porter is remembered by today, was "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" published in the December 1899 issue of McClure's Magazine.
After his release, Porter moved to New York City in 1902 to be closer to his publishers. He was also closer to the material he could use for his stories, the endless characters and human interest stories of the major city. For over a year he published a story in each issue of the New York World Sunday Magazine, 381 of them in total. He was paid $100 per story. His tales were blasted by critics, but loved by the reading public.
By 1908 his health was deteriorating badly. His second wife Sarah, a childhood love, left him in 1909, and on June 5, 1910, he died from a combination of cirrhosis of the liver, diabetes, and an enlarged heart. He was buried in his native North Carolina.
O. Henry's stories feature melodrama and twist endings, but also have vivid characters and great, often droll humor. Some of his stories are quite touching. I'm reading through the collection below and have enjoyed every story thus far.
More details on Henry's life and writing can be found in Jonathan Martin's essay and C. Alphonso Smith's 1916 biography. Smith was a childhood friend of the author. That same year he also published a significant article on the author. In 1965 Eugene Current-Garcia [one of my English professors at Auburn] published a volume in the Twayne Series on United States Authors, O. Henry: William Sydney Porter. Occasional scholarly books and articles continue to be published.
So what does all this have to do with Alabama, you ask? Well, let me explain.
Several stories by O. Henry have significant state connections. I want to mention four of them in this post.
"The Duplicity of Hargraves" was first published in the February 1902 issue of Junior Munsey magazine and included in O. Henry's 1911 story collection Sixes and Sevens. In 1917 Thomas R. Mills directed a film version released by Broadway Star Features Company.
The story is set in Washington, D.C., and primarily features Major Pendleton Talbot "of the old, old South", his daughter Lydia and their fellow boarding house resident, an actor named Henry Hopkins Hargraves. The Talbots arrive practically penniless; the Major is trying to finish his memoirs. Hargraves engages the pair in conversation often; as it turns out, he is studying the Major for a role he has in a play.
I won't tell you any more, but will offer the Alabama-related quotes below. The story with its surprise O. Henry ending is well worth a read; find it here.
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When Major Pendleton Talbot, of Mobile, sir, and his daughter, Miss Lydia Talbot, came to Washington to reside, they selected for a boarding place a house that stood fifty yards back from one of the quietest avenues.
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Major Talbot was of the old, old South. The present day had little interest or excellence in his eyes. His mind lived in that period before the Civil War when the Talbots owned thousands of acres of fine cotton land and the slaves to till them; when the family mansion was the scene of princely hospitality, and drew its guests from the aristocracy of the South. Out of that period he had brought all its old pride and scruples of honor, an antiquated and punctilious politeness, and (you would think) its wardrobe.
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After about four months in Washington, Miss Lydia discovered one morning that they were almost without money. The Anecdotes and Reminiscences was completed, but publishers had not jumped at the collected gems of Alabama sense and wit. The rental of a small house which they still owned in Mobile was two months in arrears. Their board money for the month would be due in three days. Miss Lydia called her father to a consultation.
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"I am truly sorry you took offense," he said regretfully. "Up here we don't look at things just as you people do. I know men who would buy out half the house to have their personality put on the stage so the public would recognize it."
"They are not from Alabama, sir," said the Major haughtily.
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Major Talbot, passing through the hall, saw Miss Lydia's door open and stopped.
"Any mail for us this morning, Lydia, dear?" he asked.
Miss Lydia slid the letter beneath a fold of her dress.
"The Mobile Chronicle came," she said promptly. "It's on the table in your study."
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"The Ransom of Red Chief" appeared in the Saturday Evening Post July 6, 1907, and then the collection Whirlygigs that same year. The story has been filmed several times. The best known version is probably its inclusion in the 1952 O. Henry's Full House. The story was also adapted for a segment of the ABC Weekend Special series in 1977, an opera in 1984 and a 1998 made for TV film. The basic idea has been used in various other films and shows.
Two crooks are in Alabama looking to score the rest of the funds they need for "an illegal land deal in Illinois." They decide to kidnap the young son of a rich man in the town of Summit and demand a ransom. Needless to say, events do not go as planned. I'll let you read the juicy details for yourself.
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"It looked like a good thing. But wait till I tell you. We were down south, in Alabama – Bill Driscoll and myself – when this kidnapping idea struck us. There was a town down there, as flat as a pancake, and called Summit. Bill and I had about six hundred dollars. We needed just two thousand dollars more for an illegal land deal in Illinois."
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"Shoes" and "Ships" are two related stories that appear in Henry's collection mentioned above, Cabbages and Kings. In "Shoes" John Atwood, a dissolute consul in the Central American town of Coralio, must face the appearance of his lost love from their home town of Dalesburg, Alabama. Atwood and Rosaline renew their love and with her father return to the United States. In "Ships" Atwood's assistant deal with the fallout of his boss' actions in the first story. You can read these stories in the collection at Project Gutenberg.
Alabama rates a mention in several other stories: "The Plutonium Fire", "Hygeia at the Solito", "The Reformation of Calliope", "The Gentle Grafter", "Thimble, Thimble", "The Rose of Dixie", and "Rolling Stones". As far as I can determine, Porter/Henry never visited the state.
Lee Aaker and comedians Oscar Levant and Fred Allen starred in "The Ransom of Red Chief" segment of the 1952 film O. Henry's Full House.
