Classic American Short Stories | O. Henry Biography

O. Henry Biography

William Sidney Porter (1862-1910), popularly known as O. Henry, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He did not receive a formal education and, at twenty years of age, moved to Texas, where he worked on a sheep ranch.

In 1887, he married Athol Estes Roach, supposedly the model for Della in “The Gift of the Magi”, O. Henry's most popular story; they had two children, a daughter and a son. A year later, he obtained a job at a bank, but was accused of embezzlement and served time in Ohio Penitentiary. It was this imprisonment, however, that led directly to O. Henry's career as a writer; in 1902, after three years in prison, he settled in New York with his new name and nearly a dozen short stories ready to be published. The derivation of his pseudonym is unclear: It may be related to a family cat, the name of the prison warden, or a name in a book he read in jail.

For three years, O. Henry wrote short stories every week for the World, a New York newspaper. Cabbages and Kings, his first collection of short stories, was published in 1904. These stories became extremely popular, and O. Henry's next book, The Four Million, cemented his reputation as a vivid portrayer of life in New York City. However, his personal life was destroyed by a failed marriage, bad financial dealings, and heavy drinking.

O. Henry died of complications due to alcoholism, on June 5, 1910.