O. Henry Pages
![O. Henry [1862-1910]](images/OHround.jpg) |
Profile Original Collections Later Collections Single-Story Books Works About O. Henry Audio | Video | eBooks Links |
| "About the only chance for the truth to be told is in fiction." — O. Henry |
| "More than any other author, O. Henry represents the spirit of youth, specifically the cardinal element of youth: the expectation of finding something wonderful around all of life's corners." — Ayn Rand [1905-82] |
William Sidney [later spelled Sydney] Porter was born 11 September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Under the pen name of 'O. Henry' he wrote nearly 300 short stories. He may not have invented the 'twist' ending, but his 'entertainments', with their irony and compassion and, some might say, old-fashioned sentiment, were and still are widely admired, and his reputation in American letters remains secure to this day, nearly a century later.
He left school at 15 to work, then at 19 moved to Texas, where he worked on a sheep ranch and breaking bronchosand other jobs. He moved to Austin, Texas in 1884, working at a land office and at a bank. In July of 1887, he eloped to marry beautiful Athol Estes; she bore him a son, who died within hours, then a daughter, Margaret in 1889. Irregularities discovered in his accounts at the bank in October 1894 caused him to flee, to Houston, where he worked at a newspaper. Imminent prosecution led him to flee again, leaving wife and child behind, to New Orleans and then to Honduras.
He returned to America in January 1897 upon learning that his wife was seriously ill, and soon after her death was convicted on a federal charge of embezzlement, although the government's case was weak. The three years and three months that he spent in prison in Ohio cast a shadow on his later life, and is cited as the reason for his pen name and for his insistence that his editors keep his identity secret.
In 1902, he moved to New York City, eventually writing 140 stories that took place in 'Baghdad on the Hudson'. He took up a correspondence with a woman from North Carolina; after a long-distance romance and several trips by the woman to New York, he married Miss Sara Lindsay Coleman in November 1907. Hollywood grabbed the rights to "Heart of the West", intending to make a series of Cisco Kid Westerns, and Doubleday bought the rights to his stories, providing an increase in income. His daughter graduated from school, and Will and Sara and Margaret moved into a home on Long Island.
But he would stop neither his visits to Manhattan nor his drinking; Sara left him twice, returning to North Carolina for good in early 1909.
O. Henry's career was brief and success fleeting: the first book of short stories, "Cabbages & Kings" was published in 1904; his second book, "The Four Million" was widely popular, and although subsequent books were also popular, he suffered a stroke in 1909 and died a penniless alcoholic 5 June 1910 in New York City, at the age of 51.
While O. Henry's stories can be characterized as period pieces – with off-hand references to people, places, and events of bygone times – his books have never been out of print. His birth town of Greensboro has memorialized him by naming a hotel and a major street in his honor, and producing the O. Henry Festival each April, while Austin maintains a museum in the house where he wrote his comic weekly "Rolling Stone".
Original Collections
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"Cabbages & Kings" [Central American stories; 1904]
Amereon hardcover [5/2002] for $24.95 Blackstone UNABR audio [1/99] 5 tapes for $39.95 Edition illustrated by Guy Davenport
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"The Four Million" & Other Stories [1906]
Amereon hardcover [6/76] out of print/used Airmont pb [6/63] for $3.95 Fredonia 8x5 pb [12/2000] for $17.95 BooksOnTape UNABR audio [10/82] out of stock/used |
"The Trimmed Lamp" [1907]
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"Heart of the West" [basis for 'Cisco Kid'; 1907]
Fredonia 8x5 pb [12/2000] for $17.95 MS Reader ebook [2/2001] for $2.99 'The Cisco Kid & Pancho' Page at |
"The Voice of the City" [1908]
"Voice of the City", "The Complete Life of John Hopkins", "A Lickpenny Lover", "Dougherty's Eye-Opener", "Little Speck in Garnered Fruit", "The Harbinger", "While the Auto Waits", "A Comedy in Rubber", "One Thousand Dollars", "The Defeat of the City", "The Shocks of Doom", "The Plutonian Fire", "Nemesis and the Candy Man", "Squaring the Circle", "Roses, Ruses, and Romance", "The Four Roses", "The City of Dreadful Night", "The Easter of the Soul", "The Fool-Killer", "Transients in Arcadia", "The Rathskeller and the Rose", "The Clarion Call", "Extradited from Bohemia", "A Philistine in Bohemia", "From Each According To His Ability", "The Memento"
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Fredonia 8x5 pb [12/2000] for $17.95 MS Reader ebook [3/2001] for $2.99 online text at Authors Directory online HTML stories at PageByPage Books |
"The Gentle Grafter" [14 stories 1908]
"The Octopus Marooned", "Jeff Peters As A Personal Magnet", "Modern Rural Sports", "The Chair of Philanthromathematics", "The Hand That Riles the World", "The Exact Science of Matrimony", "A Midsummer Masquerade", "Shearing The Wolf", "Innocents of Broadway", "Conscience in Art", "The Man Higher Up", "A Tempered Wind", "Hostages To Momus", "The Ethics of Pig"
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Amereon/Ayer hardcover [6/76] for $21.95 online HTML stories at PageByPage Books |
"Roads of Destiny" [1909]
IndyPublish 9x6 hardcover [10/2002] for $25.99
IndyPublish 9x6 pb [10/2002] for $20.99
"Options" [16 stories 1909]
"The Rose of Dixie", "The Third Ingredient", "The Hiding of Black Bill", "Schools and Schools", "Thimble, Thimble", "Supply and Demand", "Buried Treasure", "To Him Who Waits", "He Also Serves", "The Moment of Victory", "The Head-Hunter", "No Story", "The Higher Pragmatism", "Best-Seller", "Rus in Urbe", "A Poor Rule"
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Fredonia 8x5 pb [12/2000] for $17.95 online text at Authors Directory online HTML stories at PageByPage Books |
"Strictly Business" [23 stories 1910]
"Strictly Business", "The Gold That Glittered", "Babes In The Jungle", "The Day Resurgent", "The Fifth Wheel", "The Poet & the Peasant", "The Robe of Peace", "The Girl & the Graft", "The Call of the Tame", "The Unknown Quantity", "The Thing's The Play", "A Ramble In Aphasia", "A Municipal Report", "Psyche & The Pskyscraper", "A Bird Of Bagdad", "Compliments Of The Season", "A Night In New Arabia", "The Girl & the Habit", "Proof Of The Pudding", "Past One At Rodney's", "The Venturers", "The Duel", "What You Want"
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Fredonia 8x5 pb [3/2001] for $22.95 MS Reader ebook [3/2001] for $2.99 online HTML stories at PageByPage Books |
"Whirligigs" [1910]
"The World and the Door", "The Theory and the Hound", "The Hypotheses of Failure", "Calloway's Code", "A Matter of Mean Elevation", "Girl", "Sociology in Serge and Straw", "The Ransom of Red Chief", "The Marry Month of May", "A Technical Error", "Suite Homes and Their Romance", "The Whirligig of Life", "A Sacrifice Hit", "The Roads We Take", "A Blackjack Bargainer", "The Song and the Sergeant", "One Dollar's Worth", "A Newspaper Story", "Tommy's Burglar", "A Chapparal Christmas Gift", "A Little Local Color", "Georgia's Ruling", "Blind Man's Holiday", "Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches"
MS Reader ebook [3/2001] for $2.99
online text at Authors Directory
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"Sixes & Sevens" [1911]
Fredonia 8x5 pb [12/2000] for $17.95 |
"Waifs & Strays" [1917]
PART I: "The Red Roses of Tonia", "Round The Circle", "The Rubber Plant's Story", "Out of Nazareth", "Confessions of a Humorist", "The Sparrows in Madison Square", "Hearts and Hands", "The Cactus", "The Detective Detector", "The Dog and the Playlet", "A Little Talk About Mobs", "The Snow Man"
online HTML stories at PageByPage Books
PART II: articles by friends about O. Henry
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"Rolling Stones" [1916] pieces from O. Henry's comic weekly Fredonia 8x6 pb [12/2000] for $17.95 |
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"Letters to Lithopolis" [collected letters 1922] Edited by Mabel Wagnalls Eakin Publns pb [10/99] for $9.95 |
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"Postscripts" [1923] pieces from the Houston Post Fredonia 8x5 pb [4/2001] for $24.95 |
Complete Works of O. Henry [1937]
Doubleday hardcover [1953] 2 volumes for $130.99
Garden City Publng hardcover [1937] out of print/used
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"O. Henry's New York" [1940]
Amereon 8¾x5¾ hardcover [6/40] for $22.94 |
Later Collections
"O. Henry's Cops and Robbers" [2001]
Fredonia 8.4x5½ pb [6/2001] for $24.95
"Surprises" [20 stories 1966]
Edited by Richard Corbin & Ned E. Hoopes
Dell pb [1966] out of print/used
"O. Henry á la carte: 'The Gift of the Magi' & Other Favorites" [1973]
"The Gift of the Magi", "Hard To Forget", "Chanson de Boháeme", "Springtime á la carte", "The Ransom of Red Chief", "Nothing To Say", "The Last Leaf", "A Strange Story", "The Old Farm", "Two Portraits", "Hearts & Hands"
Hallmark/Abrams hardcover [1973] out of print/used
"Gifts" & Other Stories [1975]
Oxford Univ Press 8x5¼ pb [1/86] for $7.24
O. Henry's Short Stories [1976]
Amereon hardcover [12/76] out of print/used
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The Best Short Stories of O. Henry [38 stories 1945] Edited by Bennett A. Cerf & Van H. Cartmell Modern Library 7½x5 hardcover [3/94] for $15.37 Modern Library hardcover [1/94] out of print/used |
O. Henry's Texas Stories [1986]
Edited by Marian McClintock & Michael Simms
Dallas Still Point Press [1986] out of print/used
"The Gift of the Magi" & Other Stories [14 stories 1987]
Illustrated by Gordon Grant
Reader's Digest hardcover [8/87] out of print/used
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"The Ransom of Red Chief" & Other Stories [1989] Random House/Grammercy 9x6 hardcover [3/96] out of print/used |
"The Furnished Room" & Other Stories
Hodder & Stoughton hardcover out of print/used
"The Unknown Quantity" & Other Stories
Hodder & Stoughton hardcover out of print/used
The Pocket Book of O. Henry Stories
Pocket pb [2/86] out of print/used
Related Links
O. Henry Award Winners List 1919-2000
O. Henry Museum in Austin, Texas
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Page One:
Profile |
Original Collections |
Later Collections |
Links
Page 2:
Single-Story Books |
Works About O. Henry |
Audio | Video | eBooks
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