William Sydney PORTER

   Another name for William was O. HENRY.

  General Notes:

William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), 1862-1910
By Jennifer Winborne
Student, University of North Carolina at Pembroke
After Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe, William Sydney Porter is the most read author in the world and bears the title “master of the short story”. William Sydney Porter, also known as O.Henry, was born on September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. His mother, Mary Jane Porter, died when he was three and his father, a medical doctor, began to care more about alcohol than his practice. His grandmother was given the task of raising him and a younger sibling. She also was responsible for their extensive education. Porter was an avid reader and, by age nineteen, had read a wide variety of books and articles that would later influence his literary works. He moved to Texas in 1884 to be with friends because they were concerned about a chronic cough that had plagued him from childhood. In Texas, he got married and obtained a job as a bank teller at one of the local banks. When faced with charges of bank fraud from the bank he fled to New Orleans and then to Honduras. There in Honduras he split his time between Trujillo and Roatan. Little is known of his activities there, although his experiences in Honduras would later be incorporated into some of his stories. He returned to the states when word came that his wife, Athol, was losing her battle with tuberculosis. On his return he was convicted for bank fraud. He was sentenced to three years in an Ohio penitentiary, where he began writing short stories. Ashamed to be in prison, he hid this fact from everyone, even his own daughter, by adopting the alias O. Henry.

Two themes that are trademarks of William Sydney Porter’s stories are his reversal of the narrative and his reversal of a character’s nature. In simple terms Porter begins a story in one direction and just when the reader thinks they can predict the ending, he sends it in a totally different direction. In his stories, people who are characterized as one thing, often are the complete opposite. An example of these two themes can be found in the short story The Princess and the Puma. Josefa O'Donnell, a princess, is a pistol wearing, roping, riding cowgirl, which is a total reversal of the princess archetype. In reading this story the reader thinks that the hero, Ripley Givens, will save the princess from a mountain lion that is crouched waiting to spring on her at a watering hole. Instead Porter sends the narrative in a whole new direction, where instead she supposedly saves him from the mountain lion and does not marry him at the end of the story. One technique that is typical of Porter is his surprise endings. In The Princess and the Puma, Josefa discovered that the mountain lion she shot was in fact a pet of Given’s farm and he was trying to save him, not her. In the end the reader discovered that the mountain lion had in fact been harassing several ranches and may not have been Given’s pet after all. These themes and techniques are typical of most of all Porter’s short stories. American Writers wrote, “The stories usually have a comic tone, to be sure, but distinctly uncomic possibilities often exist just at the fringes.” Although Porter was widely popular in his own time, today his reputation has suffered. Dictionary of Literary Biography: Volume 78, said “Perhaps the reputation of no other American writer has undergone a more rapid and drastic reversal than that of William Sydney Porter.” It also says that while “Porter commanded a readership of millions” he now is not as interesting to readers as he is to critics in today's time. But although he may not have the popularity that he had in the 1900’s, his works are still considered literary classics are still read worldwide

William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) had first come to Texas in 1882, the same year that Oscar Wilde visited the city in June of that year. Porter spent most of his Texas residence in Austin, but he made visits to San Antonio, such as in late 1894 and 1895, at approximately the same time that Stephen Crane was here. As in the case of Wilde, Porter was patronized by the local journalist H. Ryder-Taylor, who convinced O. Henry that he could make his journal, The Rolling Stone, a national success if he would bring it to San Antonio and enter into a partnership with Ryder-Taylor (Long 74-75). Porter's dealings with Ryder-Taylor, unfortunately, were a mistake, and O. Henry's posthumously published collection of sketches and stories, Rolling Stones (1912), for the most part detracted from his reputation, although the work does contain one or two good stories, such as "A Fog in Santone" (Long 135).

Early twentieth-century photo of Commerce Street Bridge (Institute of Texan Cultures)

Augusta Street Bridge


Johnson Street Bridge in King William Historic District, which contains one of the spires of the original Commerce Street Bridge

While a number of O. Henry stories and sketches feature San Antonio, "Fog" is one of only two in the major collections that use the city as their complete setting, the other being "The Enchanted Kiss." Of the two San Antonio stories, "A Fog in Santone" and "The Enchanted Kiss," the former provides the reader a clearer insight into William Sydney Porter as an author writing in the 1890's realistic-naturalistic mode, regardless of the fact that he tended to sentimentalize the fallen woman theme in a manner similar to Crane's "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets." In most other respects the story is pessimistic, which partly explains the ten or more rejection slips this story received before eventually being published in The Cosmopolitan in October 1912 (Current-Garcia 36). The narrative also ironically revisits the role of San Antonio as a refuge for tuberculosis sufferers in the nineteenth century, for in this case the consumptive protagonist --one Goodall of Memphis among the "three thousand invalids . . . hibernating in the town"--opens the story in a drugstore, where he is buying morphine tablets to end his far-gone suffering (Rolling Stones 100). After completing his purchase, he wanders out into the late-night fog and pauses upon "a little iron bridge, one of the score or more in the heart of the city, under which the small tortuous river flows" (101). Noticing that the guys of the iron bridge rattle ominously to the strain of his wracking cough, he moves on to a nearby "glittering bar," where he encounters, among others, "a middle-aged man, well-dressed, with a lined and sunken face," in contrast to Goodall himself, "a mere boy who is chiefly eyes and overcoat" (103).

Early postcard of San Pedro Park, dating from about the time of O. Henry's "A Fog in San Tone" After disposing of enough Kentucky whiskey "to floor a dozen cowboys" (104), the two men separate, the older invalid, Hurd of Toledo, having arranged for a carriage ride out to San Pedro Springs at 11:00 P.M. to meet "a fellow from Noo York . . . and the Castillo sisters at Rhinegelder's Garden" (105).

Liberty Bar on E. Josephine St., formerly a German beer hall, located near San Pedro Park
With these depressing thoughts in mind, Young Goodall makes his way, perhaps for one more fling before ending it all, to a German beer hall, where he encounters a young woman, pensive and alone, waiting to ply her trade as a prostitute. However, the nineteen-year-old Goodall, whose youthful beauty the "terrible god Phthisis" (106) enhances before destroying, awakens a feeling of compassion in the young woman. Her "Eve-like comeliness" and floor-length hair remind the narrator of the Lorelei from German folklore (107). Having long since grown weary of "Texas, tarantulas, and cowboys" (108), the lovely Miss Rosa becomes fascinated with the intense young sufferer from Memphis. Before long Goodall has revealed to her his thirty-six quarter grains of morphine, more than enough to end his worries, but after spending an hour in her company he discovers that he would prefer to keep on living. Placing an arm around his neck and kissing him on the cheek, Rosa sends young Goodall away, his innocence intact and his will to live so strongly renewed that he leaves the packet of morphine grains behind.

Henry House at former location on grounds of old Lone Star Hall of Horns
Although not as morbid as "A Fog in Santone," O. Henry's other San Antonio story, "The Enchanted Kiss," does not offer a much brighter view of human nature--Hispanic or Anglo--, it also having been written while Porter was in prison for embezzling bank funds. The plot centers around a young man named Sam Tansey, "a shallow youth of twenty-three, with an over-modest demeanor and scant vocabulary" (Complete Works, 1:478). His menial position as a drugstore clerk becomes more interesting in light of the fact Porter had held such a position during his own youth. Tansey's shyness is complicated by his secret adoration of Miss Katie Peek, the attractive daughter of Captain Peek, who owns the boarding house in which Tansey and several other young men reside.

O. Henry House at new downtown location on Dolorosa St.

Early photo of old Ursuline Convent (DRT Library)




Two present views of Ursuline Convent (Southwest School of Art and Craft)

Unable to bear the frustration of his suppressed emotion and the teasing of the other boarders, on one particular evening Tansey takes refuge in a nearby saloon where he makes the mistake as an unexperienced drinker of consuming "three absinthe anisettes" within a few minutes' time (479). Coming out of the saloon more than a little confused, he spurns the direction of the Peek boarding house and ventures down an unfamiliar street, until it comes suddenly to an end "(as many streets do in the Spanish-built, archaic town of Santone)" (480), the narrator parenthetically adds. Actually, Tansey finds himself directly in front of "the convent of Santa Mercedes, with which ancient and bulky pile he was better familiar from different coigns of view" (480). In reality, this structure could only have been the old Ursuline Convent, located on what is now the north side of downtown San Antonio. Having been built for a group of French nuns from New Orleans during the mid-nineteenth century, it had been praised by Sydney Lanier as one of the more impressive structures in the city. But for O. Henry the quaint old limestone building functioned simply as a kind of gothic setting in which to fashion the remaining details of the story.
At this point Tansey, feeling the full effects of the absinthe, falls into a drunken sleep and apparently dreams, much like Hawthorne's Goodman Brown, the subsequent details of the plot. Predictably, his somnolent fantasy makes him the hero of a wild scene in which he rescues Katie Peek from her own father, who has cruelly determined to sell his own daughter, with the assistance of an ominous Mexican dwarf. To complete the transaction, the cold-hearted father must take his desperate daughter to the old Military Plaza and deliver her to one Ramon Torres, the proprietor of a food stand.



Rear view of San Fernando Cathedral from east side of Military Plaza
It is the Military Plaza where the gothic elements of Tansey's fantasy become even more bizarre when the reader learns that Ramon Torres is exactly 403 years old, had come to Mexico with Cortes in 1519 [sic] at the age of twenty-three, had come to "thees country" in 1715, had seen the Alamo "reduced," and has maintained his longevity, as he explains to Tansey, by devouring "the flesh young and tender. That ees the secret. Everee month you must eat it, having care to do so before the moon is full, and you will not die any time" (485).

Spanish Governor's Palace, located on northwest corner of Military Plaza
Of course, the specific young virgin to be cannibalized is none other than Katie Peek, whose father has sold her to Torres for one thousand dollars and whose desperate screams bring Sam Tansey to her rescue. In the ensuing struggle, the 403-year-old Torres transforms suddenly into a screaming mummy and conveniently dies, not because of Tansey's heroics but because Torres' aged hag of a wife has tricked him--out of jealousy and spite--into waiting one night too long to prepare his human chile con carne. She also manages to plunge a dagger into the back of the astonished Tansey, whose next sensation is to wake up on the same limestone steps in front of the "sleeping convent" of Santa Mercedes (Ursuline Academy/Southwest School of Art and Craft ), where he had earlier reclined to rest--and to dream.

O. Henry House at new location on Dolorosa St. This preposterous combination of Mexican folklore and romantic gothicism ends rather mundanely and, to no one's surprise, with typical O. Henry irony. Sam Tansey returns crestfallen to the Peek boarding house, where Katie has been waiting for him, though she accuses him of waking her up in the middle of the night. Turning the valve of the oil lamp the wrong way accidentally on purpose, Katie coyly plunges them into darkness and coaxes Tansey up the stairway to her room by the light of a match which he has managed to strike. While the story seems to end happily enough with his beloved Katie in his arms, Tansey considers himself an unhappy and "recreant follower of Destiny," an anti-hero manipulated by a "maid with unkissed, curling, contemptuous lips" (487), in contrast to the gallant scapegoat hero he had drunkenly fantasized himself to be, unselfishly sacrificing himself to rescue the heroine of his dreams.

Born William Sidney Porter, this master of short stories is much better known under his pen name "O. Henry." He was born September 11, 1862 in North Carolina, where he spent his childhood. His only formal education was received at the school of his Aunt Lina, where he developed a lifelong love of books. In his uncle's pharmacy, he became a licensed pharmacist and was also known for his sketches and cartoons of the townspeople of Greensboro.

At the age of twenty, Porter came to Texas primarily for health reasons, and worked on a sheep ranch and lived with the family of Richard M. Hall, whose family had close ties with the Porter family back in North Carolina. It was here that Porter gained a knowledge for ranch life that he later described in many of his short stories.

In 1884, Porter moved to Austin. For the next three years, where he roomed in the home of the Joseph Harrell family and held several jobs. It was during this time that Porter first used his pen name, O. Henry, said to be derived from his frequent calling of "Oh, 'Henry'" the family cat.

By 1887, Porter began working as a draftsman in the General Land Office, then headed by his old family friend, Richard Hall. In 1891 at the end of Hall's term at the Land Office, Porter resigned and became a teller with the First National Bank in Austin. After a few years, however, he left the bank and founded the Rolling Stone, an unsuccessful humor weekly. Starting in 1895 he wrote a column for the Houston Daily Post.

Meanwhile, Porter was accused of embezzling funds dating back to his employment at the First National Bank. Leaving his wife and young daughter in Austin, Porter fled to New Orleans, then to Honduras, but soon returned due to his wife's deteriorating health. She died soon afterward, and in early 1898 Porter was found guilty of the banking charges and sentenced to five years in an Ohio prison.

From this low point in Porter's life, he began a remarkable comeback. Three years and about a dozen short stories later, he emerged from prison as "O. Henry" to help shield his true identity. He moved to New York City, where over the next ten years before his death in 1910, he published over 300 stories and gained worldwide acclaim as America's favorite short story writer.

O. Henry wrote with realistic detail based on his first hand experiences both in Texas and in New York City. In 1907, he published many of his Texas stories in The Heart of the West, a volume that includes "The Reformation of Calliope," "The Caballero's Way," and "The Hiding of Black Bill." Another highly acclaimed Texas writer, J. Frank Dobie, later referred to O. Henry's "Last of the Troubadours" as "the best range story in American fiction."

Porter died on June 5, 1910 in New York City at the age of forty seven. An alcoholic, he died virtually penniless.

Porter moved to New York City in 1902, ostensibly to obtain material, although for the next few years his work continued to reflect his experiences in the southwest and Central America. All but 16 of the 115 stories he wrote in 1904 and 1905 dealt with New York, and on the publication of his second book, The Four Million, he was declared the discoverer of romance in that city's streets. Until 1911 (one year after his death), two collections of his stories were published annually, many of them appearing first in the New York Sunday World. In 1907, Porter married his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsay Coleman of Weaverville, North Carolina. He died in 1910, and is buried in Asheville.

William Sydney Porter's stories follow a standard formula, dealing with commonplace events in the lives of ordinary people and arriving at a surprise ending through coincidence. His two favorite themes were the situation of the imposter and fate as the one unavoidable reality of life. Some of his best known tales are "The Gift of the Magi," "A Municipal Report," and "The Ransom of Red Chief." Stories which hark back to his North Carolina background include "Let Me Feel Your Pulse" and "The Fool-Killer." Although his stories have been criticized for sentimentality and for their surprise endings, they remain popular to this day for those very reasons, and because of their author's unmistakable affection for the foibles of human nature.


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Excerpt from The Gift of the Magi
from The Four Million
McClure, Phillips & Company, 1906

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasure piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled at his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the wool red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Delia ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have sight at the looks of it.

Down rippled the brown cascade.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.

Introductory note by the author to The Four Million in which this story appears. Not very long ago some one invented the assertion that there were only "Four Hundred" people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the "Four Million."





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Books

After Twenty Years & Other Stories. Edited by Masat C. Nakauchi. Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1957.

The Best of O. Henry. London: Hodder & Stroughton, 1929.

The Best of O. Henry. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1978.

The Best Short Stories of O. Henry. Garden City, N.Y.: Sun Dial Press, 1945.

Cabbages and Kings. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1904.

The Complete Works of O. Henry. Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Co., 1911.

Complete Writings of O. Henry. Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Co., 1917.

The Four Million. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1906.

The Gentle Grafter. New York: McClure, 1908.

The Gift of the Magi. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1922.

The Gift of the Wise Men. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911.

Heart of the West. New York: McClure, 1907.

Let Me Feel Your Pulse. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1910.

Letters to Lithopolis. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1922.

O. Henry Encore. Ed. by Mary S. Harrell. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1939.

O. Henryana. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1920.

O. Henry's New York. Ed. by J. Donald Adams. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1962.

Options. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1909.

Postscripts. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1923.

The Ransom of Red Chief, and Other O. Henry Stories for Boys. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1918.

Roads of Destiny. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1909.

Rolling Stones. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1912.

Selected Stories from O. Henry. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1922.

Sixes and Sevens. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911.

Strictly Business. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1910.

Tales of O. Henry. Garden City, N.Y.: International Collectors Library, 1969.

The Trimmed Lamp, and Other Stories. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1907.

The Voice of the City. New York: McClure, 1908.

Waifs and Strays, Twelve Stories. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1917.

Whirligigs. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1910.

The Works of O. Henry. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1911.

Porter's periodical appearances include American, Century, Cosmopolitan, Critic, Everybody's, Golden Book, Hampton, Independent, McClure's, and Redbook.