Article abstract: William Sydney Porter advanced the state of American short stories and made his pen name of O. Henry synonymous with surprise endings. In a little more than one decade, he published more than two hundred stories in magazines and books, some of which are still well known one century later.
Early Life
The life of William Sydney Porter was much like the literature he wrote as O. Henry: a short story punctuated by unforeseen twists. His opening took place in the North Carolina mountain town of Greensboro, where he was born in the midst of...
Source: Dictionary of World Biography: The 19th Century, ©1999 Salem Press, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
(The entire page is 2135 words.)
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