If you had lived in New York nearly a century ago, you would surely have bumped into a tall, thin man with deep-set eyes and a moustache, curved around the edges. The curious man probably observing you from a distance would have seemed intimidating till he came up and talked to you. His courteous ways would have impressed you so much that you would have started sharing your life story with him before long.
For that’s what William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name O. Henry, loved to do. He loved observing people, speaking to them and collecting their stories. That’s how he met Soapy, the inspiration behind the character of the homeless man who desperately wants to be arrested in The Cop and the Anthem, the loving couple who give secret Christmas gift to each other despite falling on hard times (The Gift of the Magi), and other characters, whom he immortalized through his short stories.
Porter’s own life story was as fascinating as any of his characters. Did you know he worked as a ranch-hand, pharmacist, bank teller and even served time in prison, before he found fame as a storyteller?
The Pharmacist
Born September 11, 1862 in North Carolina, Porter lost his mother at a young age. His aunt Lina raised him. The only formal education the master storyteller received was at the school where his aunt was a teacher. It was here that he developed a life-long love of books.
He spent his youth serving as an assistant in his uncle’s pharmacy, where he was quick to pick up potion-making skills. At the age of 19, he became a licensed pharmacist. But he soon realised that it was not where his calling lay. Instead, amidst bottles of medicines and pills, his creativity unleashed through art. Besides filling up their prescriptions, he drew sketches of the customers who visited frequently. Needless to say, such gestures endeared him to everyone in the town.
So it was with a heavy heart that he left town when he was 20 years old. The move was prompted by health concerns over a persistent cough, which he hoped would be cured once he had a change of air. And that’s when he arrived in Austin’s Texas, a place he called home for the rest of his life.
The cowboy and his ways
For the next three years, he lived in Austin and held several jobs from a ranch-hand and a draftsman to a journalist and a banker. Porter was convicted of embezzlement by an Austin bank where he worked as a teller. But he was released after serving three years of a five-year prison sentence on account of good behaviour. While he was at Ohio Penitentiary, which was known for being a harsh prison, he was given special treatment because of his potion-making skills. He was even granted more free time than his fellow prisoners. He spent it writing some of his most famous short stories.
From this low-point in life, Porter made a remarkable comeback. Three years and about a dozen short stories later, he emerged from prison as “O. Henry” which helped him hide his true identity. He moved to New York City, where over the next nine years before his death in 1910, he published nearly 600 stories and gained worldwide acclaim as a master storyteller.
Movies inspired by his books
Henry’s short stories with their plot twists and surprise endings easily lend themselves to the screen. It’s not surprising therefore, that many of his stories have been adapted into films:
- Lootera (2013): A film by Vikramaditya Motwane starring Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha, it is inspired by the short story ‘The Last Leaf’.
- Raincoat (2204): Rituparno Ghosh’s first Hindi film is an adaptation of O. Henry ‘s “The Gift of the Magi”.
- Khatta Meetha (1998): Remade in Hindi by Priyadarshan, the film about the ethics to be followed in life, is based on “After Twenty Years”.
Oh Henry!
- O. Henry was the pen name of author William Sydney Porter. He even wrote under other pseudonyms such as S.H. Peters, James L. Bliss, T.B. Dowd, and Howard Clark.
- Porter’s pen name is said to have been derived from the way he addressed his cat – “Oh Henry!” – or it could be a tribute to a French pharmacist named Eteinne-Ossian Henry.
- He wrote nearly 600 stories about life in the U.S., especially New York. One of his best stores was rejected at least 12 times. But he did not lose heart.
- The O. Henry Award is a prestigious annual prize named after Porter and given to outstanding short stories.
- O. Henry’s love of language inspired the O. Henry Pun-Off, an annual spoken word competition which began in 1978 and takes place every year at the O. Henry House in Austin, Texas.
Picture Credit : Google