O. Henry
O. Henry ( William Sydney Porter actually; born September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina; † 5 June 1910 in New York City ) was an American writer.
Life
William Sydney Porter was born the son of a doctor. Since he was 16, he held various employments active ( seller, cowboy, bank employee ). Convicted of embezzlement guilty, he fled to Honduras, but came to the illness of his wife back and sat on a multi-year prison sentence in the state prison of Ohio. On July 24, 1901, he was dismissed, entered a job as a journalist for the Houston Post and soon became one of the best paid writers of the United States.
His pseudonym " O. Henry " he found in 1899 in a drug Manual, as in the State of Ohio prison he further formed to pharmacist assistants.
Artistic creation
The most important collection of his New Yorker short stories appeared in 1906 under the title The Four Million ( " The four million "). With four million, the population of New York is meant, which he opposed the view, only the uppermost stratum of society was for literature of interest. Many of O. Henry's best stories have been filmed and will be published as before.
They play in a gloomy environment. The heroes live on the poverty line and are confronted at the beginning of the act in addition to desperate situations. In the final punch Henry led the stories almost always lead to a happy solution. The little shop girl, the run-down artists who drew O. Henry carefully and with a certain sentimental serenity, was the sympathy of the author.
In addition, O. Henry wrote short stories that tell of the life in the Wild West. In The Caballero 's Way first appeared on the fictional character of Cisco Kid, who later became a popular character in numerous films, a TV series and comics.
O. Henry dominated the genre of the short story of his time perfectly, often parodied, and he commented on it. Although he was often identified with the trivialized short story of his time and therefore violently attacked, he was also a pioneer of modern short fiction of Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway.
The surprising twists in several works established his reputation as a master of literary twists.
O. Henry Prize
The O. Henry Award is an award presented annually since 1919 Literary Award for English-language short stories.
Works
- Expenditures: Werkausgabe ( English), 18 volumes, 1929; 4 volumes, 1974; Collected Stories ( translated by Heinrich Böll and others), 6 vols, 1981.
- The Voice of the City: short stories, Reclam, Leipzig, contains: Shoes and ships; Rouge et Noir; Trapped; The theory and the dog; The roads we choose; Unschuldsengel from Broadway; The Gift of the Magi; A sacrifice of love; The furnished room; The story of a dirty ten dollar bill; The green door; As the wolf 's fur was tanning; The gold that shone; Deceived deceiver; The women and the dizziness; The protection of man and the chorale; After twenty years; The exact science of the marriage; Schools and schools; No history; The better expertise; A thousand dollars; The Count and the Wedding Guest; Strictly business; Height and depth research; Hearts and hands; The cactus; Failed hypotheses; The door to the world; girls; The pendulum; The pancakes of Pimienta; Black Bill's retreat; Friends in San Rosario.