Read online "Life and Stories O. Henry"

William Sydney Porter, known under the creative pseudonym O. Henry, is famous for the stories filled with humor and always an unexpected bright finale. Despite the optimism of the writer on the novel pages, his life since childhood was not easy and sad.

After a century, among fans of the literary talent of O. Henry and modern critics, U. S. Porter is considered the standard of subtle humor and sarcasm. And the story "Leader of Redheads" is a business card O. Henry - and at all, he was among the most popular in the world. However, not only humorous stories wrote William Porter - Novella "The Last Leaf" became a sample of sentimentality.

William himself did not consider himself a genius, on the contrary, the writer was distinguished by modesty and critically referred to his works. The creative dream of O. Henry was the creation of a full-fledged novel, but she was not destined to come true.

Childhood and youth

William Sydney Porter was born in the family of Dr. Algerenon Sydney Porter and Mary Jane Virginia Swaym Porter on September 11, 1862. Parents of the future writer entered married on April 20, 1958, and after 7 years, the mother of the future writer died from tuberculosis.

William barely turned 3 years old when Olgersnon Sydney Porter took him to live to her grandmother. Soon, his father, without recovering from the loss of his wife, began to drink, stopped doing her son, settled in the Flegene and his free time devoted to the inventions of the "Eternal Motor".

From early childhood, staying without maternal love and care, the boy found consolation in the books. William read everything: from the classics to female novels. The Arab and Persian fairy tales "Thousands and One Night" and the English prose in the style of Baroque Robert Burton "Anatomy of Melancholy" in 3 volumes became the favorite works of youth. Favorite literary works of young William had an impact on the work of the writer.

After the death of Mother, the upbringing of Little William took over his sister of his father Evelina Maria Porter. It was a aunt who owned his own private elementary school, instilled a love for literature to the future writer. Having received secondary education at Lindsie Street School, William did not change the family traditions and settled to work in a pharmacy that belonged to his uncle. In August 1881, the young porter received a pharmacist license. Continuing to work in a pharmacy, he demonstrated natural artistic talents, drawing portraits of citizens.

In March 1882, William, exhausted by the exhausting cough, went to Texas, accompanied by James Kol's doctor, hoping that the climate change would help a young man to restore health. Porter settled on Richard Hall ranch, Dr. James's son, in La Sal. Richard raged sheep, and William helped Otara's mouth, as well as to keep the farm on the ranch and even prepared dinners.

During this period, the future writer studied the adverium of Spanish and German due to communicating with the workers on a ranch that immigrated from other countries. In his free time, William read the classical literature.

Soon the state of the health of the porter improved. In 1884, a young man went with Richard to Austin's city, where he decided to stay and settled with Richard's friends, Joseph Harrell and his spouse. Porter lived with Harrells for three years. In Austin, William got a job at the Pharmaceutical Company Morley Brothers as a pharmacist, and then moved to the Harrell Cigar Store. During this period, William began to write first for entertainment, and then increasingly carried away.

In a short period of time, Porter changed many positions and places of work: the young man worked as a cashier, a billboard, a drawer. It was in Harrell's house that a novice writer created a number of early novels and stories.

Comrade William Richard Hall became the Texas Commissioner and suggested a vacancy from Porter. The future writer started as a specialist in the drawings in the land administration. Salary was enough for the family to do not need anything, but a man in parallel continued to engage in literary creativity as a part-time job.

On January 21, 1891, William resigned, immediately after the victory in the elections of the new governor of Jim Hogga. Working by a specialist in drawings, William began to develop characters and plots for the stories "Resolution of Georgia" and "Caste".

At the same time, William got a job in a bank who was in Austin, as a cashier and an accountant. Porter, apparently, casually filled the books of accounting, and in 1894 he was accused of embezzlement. William lost his job, but officially did not charge him then.

After the dismissal, Porter moved to Houston's city, where the writer dedicated himself to creativity. At the same time, federal auditors checked the Bank of Austin and found a shortage, which led the writer to dismissal. Then a federal indictment was followed, and soon William was arrested on charges of embezzlement.

William's father made a deposit to save the Son from prison. The court appointed on July 7, 1896, but on the eve of the court session, the impulsive William ran first to New Orleans, and then in Honduras. William lived there only six months, until January 1897. There he became friends with Al-Jennings, a notorious robber of trains, which later wrote a book about their friendship.

In 1897, William returned to the United States, having learned about his wife's disease. On February 17, 1898, a court was held on which the writer was recognized as guilty of an estimate of $ 854.08 and sentenced to 5 years in prison. Considering that Porter was a licensed pharmacist, he was able to work in a hospital for prisoners as a night pharmacist. He was given a personal room in a hospital wing, and he did not spend the day in the prison cell.

On July 24, 1901, for good behavior after serving three years, Porter was released and reunited with his daughter. For 11-year-old Margaret Father all this time was on a business trip.

Literature

The first experience of the literary activity of Porter received in the 1880s as the publisher of the humorous weekly "The Rolling Stone", but after 1 year the magazine ceased to exist due to insufficient financing. Nevertheless, his letters and drawings attracted the attention of the editor to the "Houston POST".

In 1895, Porter with his family moved to Houston, where he began to write to publish in periodicals. His income was only $ 25 per month, but it was steadily increased, since the popularity of the work of a young writer increased. Porter collected ideas for his works, walking in the hotel's lobby, watching and talking to people. He used this technique throughout his career.

Hiding from the arrest in Honduras at the Trujillo Hotel, Porter wrote the book "Kings and Cabbage", in which he invented the term "Banana Republic" to qualify the country. This phrase was subsequently widely used to describe a small unstable country with agricultural economy.

After the arrest, in prison, William wrote another 14 stories under various pseudonyms. One of the stories, namely, the "Christmas stocking of Dick Svistuna," published in the issue of McClure magazine in December 1899 under the pseudonym O. Henry. A friend of William in New Orleans sent his stories to publishers so that they would not guess that the writer was serving a prison sentence.

The most fruitful creative period from Portor began in 1902, when he moved to New York. There the writer created 381 story. More than a year weekly stories O. Henry were published in the issues of New York World Sunday Magazine magazine. The wit, the type of heroes and turns of the plot, have given readers delight, but often critics were treated in the work of William pretty cool.

Personal life

Being a young bachelor, William led an active lifestyle in an ocene. He was known for his wit, oratory skill and musical talents: playing the guitar and on Mandolin. In addition, William sang in the choir in the Episcopal Church of St. David and even became a member of the Quartet of the city of Hill, "a group of young people who gave small citywide concerts.

In 1885, when booking the cornerston Capitol Capitol, Texas, the charming William Porter met the Atol of Estes - a 17-year-old girl from a wealthy family. Mother Atol abruptly objected to the union of young people and even forbade her daughter. Cook with William. But soon lovers in love with the Estes family married the church of Rev. R. K. Sutor, the pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church.

After the wedding, young people often participated in musical and theatrical productions, and it was atol who called on her husband to continue writing. In 1888, the Atol gave birth to a boy who lived just a few hours, and a year later, the daughter of Margaret Wworth Porter.

After the accusation of Porter in the waste, William fled from the United States to Honduras, where he continued to write. At first, the spouses planned that the Atol with his daughter would soon join him. However, the health status of the woman did not allow her to go to such a long and difficult journey. When William reached the news that the Atol was seriously ill, Porter returned to Austin in February 1897 and surrendered to the guards of order.

Six months, the Atol Porter died. The cause of the death of a woman was tuberculosis, from whom the mother of the writer also died. In memory of the beloved wife, William left only a family photo, where the writer is depicted with the Atol and daughter Margaret.

In 1907, Porter married Sare (Sally) Lindsay Coleman, who liked William still in his youth. Later, Sarah Lindsay Coleman described the romantic fictional version of their correspondence and Caring William in the Novella "Wind of Fate". Another number of authors later wrote more reliable variants of the biography of the famous writer.

Death

During the life of William Porter had problems related to alcohol abuse, which aggravated by the end of the writer's life and did not allow William to fully work. In 1909, the second wife of Porter Sarah left him, and on June 5, 1910, the writer died. The cause of the death of William Porter became cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes.

After 8 years, the annual literary premium for the best story named after O. Henry was established. The owners of the premium became, and other writers. And in 2010, a new Literary Prize named after O. Henry called "Dara Volkhvov", which is a contest of stories and Novel in Russian in the best traditions of William Porter. Among her laureates, Evgeny Mammoths and others are listed.

The daughter of the famous writer Margaret went in the footsteps of the Father. The girl was engaged in literary activities from 1913 to 1916. After 11 years, Margaret died from tuberculosis.

Bibliography

• 1906 - "Four million"
• 1907 - "Burning Lamp"
• 1907 - "West Heart"
• 1908 - "Noble Jolong"
• 1908 - "Voice of the Big City"
• 1909 - "Fate Roads"
• 1909 - "To choose from"
• 1910 - "Conduction"
• 1910 - "Business People"
• 1910 - Six Seven Six
• 1910 - "Under the lying stone"
• 1910 - "Remains" or "Total Certain"

O. Henry (1862-1910) - American Writer of the late 19th-early 20th centuries. He received recognition of readers due to its novels - sensual, deep, piercing, surprising unexpected junctions. The writer is also called the Master of the "Short Story". All books O. Henry are written in the genre of classical prose.

The present name of the writer is William Sydney Porter. Native Greensboro North Carolina (staff). Twenty-year-old guy came to Texas, where he stayed. In the care of the bread, the Pharmacist, Cowboy, the Seller tried in care of the bread. Subsequently, this experience will play a positive role in his work. The author will write his unforgettable novels about them, ordinary people of different professions.

At the same time, Porter is fond of journalism. The cost of the National Bank's cashier is suspected of spreading and runs to Honduras. There he is waiting for his wife and little daughter, but the wife dies. Father has to return home to her daughter. The court recognizes his guilty, Porter goes to serve five years of conclusion.

The prison conclusion was a turning point in the author's work. He has a lot of free time. In addition to the execution of the charges of the pharmacist imputed to him, he writes a lot. It begins to be printed in various editions under the pseudonym O. Genry.

The first book was published in 1904 called "Kings and Cabbage". It was the first and only novel of the author. The novel was filled with Soviet director Nikolai Raceev in 1978 in the form of a musical comedy.

But still the best books recognized the novel collections. Films for these works began to shoot back in 1933.

On our site you can read online books O. Genry in FB2 formats (FB2), TXT (TLC), EPUB and RTF. Following the chronology of the novel and the stories included in the collections of the "Gifts of Magi" and "Last Leaf", you can trace how the author's style of the writer improved.

There were days when O. Genry composed and recorded one story on the journal for the magazine that concluded a contract with him. Judging by the sequence of books written at the time, the author then paid more attention to entertainment readers than artistic truth. The writer's desire to earn more money was affected.

We offer download e-books in Russian. For example, "the last sheet" is a touching story telling about a seriously ill girl deprived of any hope of recovery. And only the last leaf on the old spit is inspiring faith. When he falls, everything will be completed. But will he fall?

O. Genry left life rather early. According to eyewitnesses, in recent years, he abused alcohol. For this reason, the second wife left him. He died in New York in 1910 by leaving the world a beautiful heritage in the form of short stories carrying faith, hope and love.

Story dirty dozen

Money speaks. But you may, maybe think that in New York, the voice of an old ten-dollar paper sounds a barely audible whisper? Well, perfectly, skip, if you like, by the ears told Sotto Volevatobiography of Stranger. If your hearing is mily roar of the checkbook of John D., spewing from the megaphone drive around the streets, your business. Do not forget only that the small coin is sometimes not climbing the word in your pocket. When the next time you will dig an extra silver fourth caddle of a grocery shop, so that he hung up with the master's shop with a hike, read the words first over the head of the lady. Cheek replica, isn't it?

I am a ten-dollar appointion of the release of 1901. You may have seen those in someone from your acquaintances. On the front side, I am depicted by the Bison American, a mistakenly called buffalo fifty or sixty million Americans. On the sides there are heads of captain Lewis and Captain Clark. From the back side in the center of the scene, it is worth a graceful breath on a greenhouse plant, or freedom, whether Ceres, or Missine Elliot.

For certificates About me, please contact: Paragraph 3. 588, corrected charter. If you try to exchange me, Uncle Sam will put you on the counter ten wake-up full coins - right, I do not know, silver, gold, lead or iron.

I tell me a little bitching, you already sorry - forgive? I knew that, thank you - after all, even the nameless bills cause a sort of pick-up trembling, the desire to please, is not it? You see, we, dirty money, almost completely deprived of the opportunity to polish their speech. I did not seem to have met the educated and educated person, who would have a long time to stay for a longer period than is required to reach the nearest culinary shop. For a six-year-old, I have a very exquisite and lively appeal. Debts I give as well as the victorious dead man on the last path. What only to the owners I did not serve! But I once happened to recognize my ignorance, and before whom? In front of the old, shaped and untidy five - silver certificate. We met her in a thick, bad smelling of the butcher's wallet.

Hey, you, the daughter of the Indian leader, - I say, "Stop Okhant. Do not you understand that you are already time to remove from circulation and print again? The release is only 1899, and what are you like?

You can see, you think, since you are a biecone, so you put it without silent, "the five responded. - And you would deteriorate if they held a whole day under the filter and garter, when the temperature in the store does not fall below the eighty five.

I did not hear about such wallers, "I said. - Who put you there?

Saleswoman.

And what is the saleswoman? - I was forced to ask.

This sister will not know no earlier than for their sister will come the golden age, - answered the five.

Iha, lady! She is not like the filming. But they would put you for cotton, as they did with me, did you donimali all the day with factory dust, so even the lady with a horn of abundance, what would you sing then?

This conversation took place the day after my arrival in New York. I was sent to the Brooklyn bank one of their Pennsylvanian branches in a pack of the same as me, a dozen. Since then, I have never had to get acquainted with wallets, in which my five-dollar and two-dollar interlocuts visited. I was hiding only for silk.

I was lucky. I did not sit on the spot. Sometimes I moved from hand to twenty times a day. I was familiar with the starnant of each transaction; About every pleasure of my owners again I gave it. On Saturdays I am invariably pointed on the rack. Dozens are always pointed, but banknotes in the dollar or two are folded and modestly pushed to the bartender. Gradually, I got into the taste and trimmed either to stick the whiskey, or smear from the rack splashing there Martini or Manhattan. Somehow driving a peddler with a cart on the street. Invested me in a plump felling pack, which was worn in the pocket of the overalls. I thought I would have to forget about the present appeal, since the future owner of the universal store lived for eight cents a day, limiting his menu with meat for dogs and onions. But then the peddler somehow stuck, putting his cart too close to the intersection, and I was saved. I am still grateful to the Polismen, who reversed me. He exchanged me in a tobacco bench near Baueri, where a gambling gambling was served in the rear room. And the head of the police station, whom he was lucky in this evening. During the day later, he was cutting me in a restaurant on Broadway. I also sincerely pleased with the return to the country's departures, like any of the astor, when the fires of Charing Cross envy.

Dirty dozen do not have to sit without a business on Broadway. Once I was named alimony, folded and stubborn in a suede wallet, where there were plenty of ten-weeks. They boastfully recalled the rapid summer season in Osining, where three dooms of the daughter and the case leared some of them for ice cream. However, these infant couments are simply storms in a glass of water, if you compare them with hurricanes who are subject to bills of our dignity in a formidable hour of reinforced demand for lobsters.

I heard about dirty money for the first time when charming Yunets Van someone threw me there and a few of my girlfriends to pay for a handful of chips

About midnight, the teashed and dozen small with a bold face of the monk and the eyes of the janitor, who had just gained a surcharge, rolled me and many other banknotes in the tight roll - "piece", as the pollutants of money are expressed.

Write for me five hundred, - he said to the Banker, - and look, so that everything was as follows, Charlie. I want to walk along the wooded valley while the moon light plays on the rocky cliff. If someone from ours is delivered - keep in mind, in the left upper branch of my safe lie sixty thousand dollars wrapped in a humorous application to the magazine. Keep your nose in the wind, but do not throw words to the wind. Until.

I was between two twenty - gold certificates. One of them told me:

Hey you, "new" old woman, lucky you. You will see something busy. Today, the old Jack is going to turn the whole "Bifstex" in Kroshevo.

Ten years ago, in St. Petersburg, I met with one American. The conversation was not glued, the guests gathered to leave, but by chance I mentioned the name O. Henry. The American caleted, invited me to himself and, acquaintance with his friends, I said to each of them:

- Here is a man who loves O. Henry.

And those started to smile me a friendly. This name was a talisman. One Russian lady asked the owner: "Who is this O. Henry? Your relative? " Everyone laughed, but, in essence, the lady was right: O. Henry, and indeed, for each American - a relative. Other writers love otherwise, cooler, and they have a domestic attitude towards this. Calling his name, smile. His biographer, Professor Alfonso Smith, says that O. Henry attracted conservatives, and extreme radicals, and maids, and secular lamen, and scribes, and business people. There is no doubt that in a few years he and in our Russia will be one of the most beloved writers.

Genuine name O. Henry was William Sydney Porter. This long did not know even his admirers. He was hidden and did not like popularity. Someone wrote him a letter: "Answer, please, you are a man or a woman." But the letter remains unanswered. In vain, publishers of newspapers and magazines asked for O. Henry permission to print his portrait. He refused to everyone, saying: "For what I also invented myself a pseudonym, as not to hide." Never told anyone he was his biography, "even his closest friends. Reporters did not have access to it and were forced to invent no disasters about him.

He never visited himself in secular, nor in literary salons and preferred to wander from the Tavern to the Tavern, talking to the first oncoming, who did not know that he was a famous writer. To preserve your incognito, he learned himself a common speech and, if he wanted, he impressed illiterate. He loved to drink. I felt best in the company of workers: he sang with them, and danced, and danced, and looked, so they took it behind the factory and asked, at what plant he works. He became a writer late, the glory found out only for the forty-fifth year of his life. Kindness he was extraordinary: he distributed everything that he had, and, no matter how much earned, he constantly needed. According to his relation to the money, he looked like our Gleb Uspensky: I could not save them, I didn't care. Once in New York, he stood on the street and talked to his acquaintances. The beggar approached him. He took out a coin from his pocket and enjoyed angrily in hand with a thread: "Leave, do not interfere, here's a dollar." A beggar left, but in a minute I returned: "Mr., you were so kind to me, I do not want to deceive you, it's not a dollar, it is twenty dollars, take it back, you are mistaken." O. Henry pretended to be angry: "Cut up, go, I told you that you do not stick to me!"

In the restaurant, he gave a varkesh for tea twice as much as it cost lunch. His wife crushed: it costs any beggar to come to him and lick about his misadventures, and O. Henry gave everything to the last cent, gave trousers, jacket, and then accompanied the doors, staring at: "Come again." And they came again.

Supernaturally observant, he allowed himself to be naive for himself when it was the matter of the needy.
He was a man who was not surrender, he kept in the distance and seemed to be stern many. According to the outside, it looked like the average hand of the actor: full, shaved, low growth, the eyes are narrow, the movements are calm.

He was born in the south, in the sleepy town Greenzborough, in North Carolina, September 11, 1862. His father was a doctor - scattered, kind, small, funny man, with a long gray beard. The doctor was fond of the invention of all sorts of machines, of which nothing went out; Always fought in Saraj with some ridiculous shell, who fouled to him Edisson Glory.

The mother of Willy Porter, an educated, fun woman, died from Chakhotka three years after the birth of the son. The boy studied at a aunt, aunt was an old Virgin, having fed his students who seem to be rose. Willie Porter was the same Torvan, as well as others. His beloved fun was playing red. To do this, he pulled the feathers from the tail from living turks, decorated with these feathers his head and rushed to the bison and wild squeaver. The role of the Bizonov was performed by neighboring pigs. The boy with a crowd of his comrades pursued unfortunate animals, shot them from homemade bow. Chavronia squeezed, as if they were cut, the arrows deeply stuck in the body, and the mountains were boys if the owners of the pigs learned about this hunt.

Another fun Willie Porter was to break those shells who invented his father. The old man has a positive effect on these shells: he invented and perpetuum mobile, and the steam car, and the aircraft, and the device for mechanical laundry laundry - abandoned the practice and almost did not leave the barn.

Once, Willy escaped with a friend from the house to enter the whale ship (he was then ten years old), but he didn't have enough money, and he had to return home by the hare - almost on the roof of the car.

Willie had an uncle, the provision, the owner of the pharmaceutical store. The fifteen-year-old Willy teenage entered the service and soon learned to make powders and pills. But the main thing, he learned to draw. Every free minute he painted caricatures on his uncle and his buyers. Caricatures were evil and good. Everyone was propheted Willy the fan of the artist. The pharmaceutical store in Zaolefast is not so much a store as the club. All come there with their diseases, questions, complaints. The best school for the future of the Belletrist can not come up with.

I read Willy Popoie - "Red-eyed Pirate", "Forest Devil", "Thunderstorm Jamaica", "Jack of Ripper," - read and coughed, because from eighteen years he began to threaten a char. Therefore, he was very happy when one of the regulars of the uncle club, Dr. Hall, suggested that he to go for a while in Texas, for health recovery. Dr. Hall in Texas lived three sons - giants, well done, silica. One sons was a judge - the famous Hall, which was afraid of the whole district; Armed from head to feet, he ruined the day and night on the roads, delaying the concorads and robbers, which then Kisheh Texas. In March 1882, Willie Porter arrived at him and became on his farm cowboy. He was a semi-servant, half-guest; He worked like a servant, but was in friendly relations with the owners. Joking learned to be managed with a herd, throwing a lasso, cut and bathe sheep, walking behind the horses, shoot, without joining the saddle. He learned how to prepare lunch and often cut, replacing the cook. The wild life of Texas was studied by him to the smallest detail, and afterwards he made greatly used this knowledge in the book "West Heart." He learned to speak Spanish - not only on the spoiled Spanish jargon, which is spoken in Texas, but on the genuine Castilian adveria.

At the same time he began to write, but mercilessly destroyed his manuscripts. What he wrote is unknown. With all the books, he with the greatest interest read at that time not novels and a story, but an intelligent English dictionary, in the kind of our gift - the best reading for a young writer.

On the farm he stayed two years old. From there I went to Austin, the capital of Texas, - and lived there eleven years. What professions he tried for these eleven years! It was also a root in the warehouse of tobacco products, and an accountant in the office of the sale of houses, was a singer in all sorts of churches, and a cashier in a bank, and the draftsman from the landing, and the actor in small Teathers - nowhere showed special talents, nor special addiction to the case But, without noticing, I saved a huge material for future literary work. The literature then he seemed to be deliberately avoided, preferring her small, invisible positions. He did not have any ambiguousness and always loved to remain in the shade.

In 1887, he married a young girl who secretly took from his parents - and soon began to write for newspapers and magazines. But his writings were small - ordinary newspaper trash. In 1894, he became the editor of the local humorous newspaper "Rolling Stone", for which he supplied drawings, articles, poems, not wonderful anything. The newspaper soon wing.

In 1895, he moved to another town - Gauston, where he edited the "daily mail", and everything went well, he was knocked out on the literary road, "Suddenly a thunderstorm broke out.

A judicial agenda came from Austin. William Porter was called to court on charges of assigning money. The judicial investigation found that when he was a cashier of the First National Bank, he at different times assigned more than a thousand dollars.

All those who knew him believed this charge by a judicial mistake. We were confident that, imagining the court, he will prove his innocence in half an hour. Great was the amazement of everyone when it turned out that the accused was hidden. Without reaching the city of Austin, he moved to another train and took away to the south at night, to New Orleans, leaving his daughter and his wife in Austin.

Why he ran away, we do not know. His biographer claims that he was innocent, and ran away because he wanted to protect the good name of his wife. If so, then he - on the contrary - should remain and prove his innocence in court. Wife would not have to endure so much shame and grief. Obviously, he had the reasons to be afraid of the court. The biographer says that the Bank's administration was to blame for everything: the reporting was carried out negligently, the refivisions themselves were taken from the cashier of two hundred, then three hundred dollars, without entering it into office books. The books had a monstrous chaos; The cashier, which before Porter served in this bank, so confused what he wanted to shoot. No wonder that the porter is confused. Who knows: Maybe, using the availability of money, he himself two times or three borrowed a hundred dollars from the cash register, with sincere confidence that the OP will put these dollars in the coming days back. The biographer assures that he was absolutely innogen, but why did he touch then?

From New Orleans, he sneaked in a cargo ship in Honduras and, going to the marina, felt safe. Soon he saw that another steamer was suitable for the pier and some very strange man fleeing an arrow from there in a heoded trick and a casting cylinder. Clear clothes, for ship unsuitable. It was seen that the man was pleased with the hurry, did not have time to change out, right from the theater or from the Bala.

- What made you hurry to leave? - asked him who fled the cashier.

"The same as you," the one replied.

It turned out that Mr. Frace - Al. Janning, the famous criminal, head of the gangs of the train thieves, who terrorized the entire southwest terrible thefts. The police traveled him down, he was forced to flee so quickly from Texas that he could not even be changed. Together with him was his brother, too, the thief, also in the cylinder and in Frace. William Porter joined the fugitives, and three of them began to circle in South America. That's when he was commemorated by the knowledge of Spanish. They came out of money, they fell from hunger. Gennings offered to rob a German bank, the case is faithful, mining is equally.
- Want to work with us? He asked William Porter.

"No, not very," he answered sadly and politely.

These forced walnia in South America were useful to the porter subsequently. If he did not run from the court, we would not have a novel "Kings and Cabbage," where a close acquaintance with the banana republics of Latin America was affected.

At this time, his wife was sitting in the city of Austin, without money, with a small daughter, patient. He called her to himself in the Republic of Honduras, but she was very sick and could not go into such a way. She embroidered some kind of scarf, sold it and, having purchased money on the first, the bottle of spirits, sent him to the exile. He did not suspect that she was seriously ill. But when he was informed about it, he decided to give himself in the hands of the judicial authorities, to go to jail, just to see his wife. So he did. In February 1898, he returned to Austin. He was tried, they were convicted - and he was silent in court, he did not say any sound in his justification, - and sentenced to a five-year prison in prison. The fact that he was in the run, only aggravated the guilt. He was detained and sent to the state of Ohio, to the city of Colomboos, in a correctional trial prison. The orders in this prison were terrible. In one of his letters, William Porter wrote:
"I never thought that human life is so cheap. People look like on animals without soul and without feelings. Working day here thirteen hours, and who will not fulfill the lesson, that beat. It can only make a job, for most this is true death. If a person fell and can't work, he was carried into the cellar and send such a strong stream of water into it that he loses consciousness. Then the doctor leads him to the feeling, and the unfortunate hang over his arms to the ceiling, he hangs on this end of two hours. His legs almost do not touch the earth. After that, he is driven to work again and if he falls, it is put on the stretcher and carry it in Lazarez, where he is waved or die or recover. Chakhotka here is an ordinary thing, it is like a runny nose with you. Twice a day, patients are hospital - from two hundred to three hundred people. They are built in line and pass by the doctor, without stopping. He prescribes the medicine - on the go, on the run - one after the other, and the same turn moves to the prison pharmacy. There is the same manner, without stopping - on the go, on the run - patients receive medicine.

I tried to reconcile with the prison, but no, I can not. What binds me to this life? I can make any senses to the will, but I no longer wish this life. The sooner I camp it will be better for me, and for everyone. "

That was, it seems the only case when this strong and secretive man expressed his feelings out loud, complained to his pain.

When in prison asked what he was engaged in the wild, he replied that he was a reporter. In reporters, prison did not need. But then he tried and added, that in addition he is a pharmacist. It saved him; He was placed at the hospital, and soon he discovered such talents as the doctors, and the patients began to treat him with respect. He worked all the nights, preparing medicines, visiting patients, helping prison physicians, and it gave him the opportunity to get acquainted with almost all the arrestants and collect a huge material for his future books. Many criminals told him their biography.
In general, life as if it was specifically cared to prepare a fictionist from it. If he were not in prison, he would not write one of his best books "Zhulika Stories" (The Gentle Graft).

But he did not get cheaply his knowledge of life. In prison, he was especially tormented by their own, but other people's torment. With disgrace, he describes the cruel regime of an American prison:

"Suicide we have the same ordinary thing as you have picnics. Almost every night we are with a doctor in some chamber, where one or another arrestant tried to commit suicide. This sore throat happened, this hanged himself, he poisoned with gas. They think well such enterprises and therefore almost no failure. Yesterday, one athlete, a boxing specialist, suddenly went crazy; Of course, sent for us, for the doctor and for me. The athlete was so well training that it took eight people to tie it. "

These horrors he observed every day, painfully worried him. But he was attached, did not complain and sometimes managed to send merry and frivolous letters from prison. These letters were intended for his little daughter who had not had to know that her dad was in prison. Therefore, he took all the measures so that his letters to her did not wear a gloomy nature:

"Hello, Margaret! He wrote. - Do you remember me? I am Murzilka, my name is the anldibirontyphostiforcophos. If you see a star in the sky and before it rolls, you have time to repeat my name seventeen times, you will find a ring with a diamond in the first track of a blue cow. The cow will walk through the snow - after blizzard, - and punch roses on tomato bushes are blooming around. Well, forgive, it's time for me to leave. I ride the ride on the grasshopper. "

But as he tried to seem careless, the longing and anxiety often slipped in these letters.

In prison, he unexpectedly met with his old acquaintance, rail robber al. Janning. Here they even got closer, and Janning, under the influence of Porter, became another person. He abandoned his profession and also went through the literary road. He recently published his prison memories of O. Henry, a whole book, where he described very penetrating, what moral flour was experiencing O. Henry in prison. On the prison orders of al. Janning is remembered with rage. All criticism unanimously recognized that this thief is an excellent writer that his book is not only a curious human document, but also an excellent work of art. By the way, al. Gennings says that in prison was a wonderful cracker of non-military checkout, the artist of his case, which so brilliantly revealed any locked iron ticket office, which seemed a wonderworker, a wizard, an unearthly creature. This great artist languished in prison, - melted as a candle, longing for his beloved business. And suddenly they came to him and said that somewhere in some bank there is a cash desk, which even the court authorities are not able to open. It needs to be discovered, there are no keys, and the prosecutor decided to cause a bright arrest of a brilliant cross, so that he assisted the judicial authorities. And he was promised freedom if he discovered this ticket office. You can imagine how an inspired and passionately pounced on the cashier a talented hacker, with which he crushed her iron walls with, but barely only opened it - ungrateful authorities forgot about their promise and drove him back to prison. Unfortunate did not take this mockery, finally fell and worn.

Porter subsequently depicted this episode in his famous story "A RETRIEVED REFORMATION", but, as you know, changed the end. Prison authorities in a good story than they were in practice.

He was released ahead of time, for good behavior in prison. Good behavior mainly consisted in the fact that, being a prison pharmacist, he did not break the state alcohol, - the virtue is unprecedented in the chronicles of the prison pharmacy.

Coming out of prison, he for the first time in his life seriously began his writing. Already in prison, he sketched something, and now came to work closely. Previously, he assigned to himself a pseudonym O. Henry (the name of the French Pharmacist Henri), under which herself tightly from everyone. He avoided a meeting with her former familiar, no one guessed that under the pseudonym O. Henry hiding a former convict. In the spring of 1902, he first arrived in New York. He was walking forty first year. Until now, he lived only in the provinces in the south, in sleepy and naive towns, and the capital fascinated him. He wandered the days and nights through the streets, insatically absorbing the life of the Great City. He fell in love with New York, became the poet of New York, he studied in it every corner. Both millionaires, artists, and shopkeepers, and workers, and city, and cockails - he learned everyone, studied, and lifted to his pages. His literary performance was colossal. In a year, he wrote about fifty stories - laconic, clear, to the limit of saturated images. His stories from the week a week appeared in the WORLD newspaper - and were met with great enthusiasm. There was still a writer in America who would have brought the technique of a short story to such perfection. Each story O. Henry 300 - 400 lines, and in each huge, complex story, - a variety of excellent persons and almost always the original, intricate, intricate plot. Critics began to call him "American chipping", "American Maupassant", "American Gogol", "American Chekhov". His glory grew with each story. In 1904, he gathered his stories depicting South America, in one Tomik, tied them to an ambulance with a funny plot - and printed under the guise of the novel "Kings and Cabbage". It was his first book. There is a lot of hydroevil, deliberately adjustable, - but it has both the southern mountains and the southern sun, and the South Sea, and the genuine carelessness of the dusty, singing south. The book was successful. In 1906, the second book O. Henry "Four million" appeared, all dedicated to his New York. The book opens with a wonderful preface, which has now become famous. The fact is that in New York there is its own aristocracy, - cash, - living a very closed life. It is almost impossible to penetrate her circle. She is small, not more than four hundred people, and all newspapers are filled before it. It did not like O. Henry, and he wrote:

"Recently, someone decided to argue that in the city of New York there is only four hundred people worthy of attention. But then there was another, more inequate - the compiler of the census - and proved that there are no four hundred such people, but much more: four million. It seems to us that he is right, and therefore we prefer to call our stories "four million".

In New York, there were four million inhabitants, and all these four million appeared O. Henry equally worthy of attention. He is a poet of four million; That is, all American democracy. After this book, O. Henry became famous for all America. In 1907, he published two books of stories: "The flavored lamp" and "West Heart"; In 1908, two are also two - "the voice of the city" and "delicate rogue"; In 1909, again, two - Roa Roads and "Privileges", in 1910 again two - "exclusively in the case" and "waterways". Scripture short stories did not satisfy him, he was planted a big novel. He said: "Everything I wrote is still, it's just a pampering, a pen test, compared to what I will write in a year." But after a year he did not like to write anything: he was overwhelmed, he began to suffer with insomnia, left for the south, did not recover, and returned to New York completely broken. He was taken to the clinic for the thirty-fourth street. He knew that she was going to die, and he spoke about it with a smile. In the clinic he joked, lying in full consciousness - clear and joyful. In the morning on Sunday, he said: "Light fire, I do not intend to die in the dark," and in a minute passed away - June 5, 1910.
Characteristic O. Henry, as a writer, will be given in the nearest rooms of the "Modern West", when the Russian reader is closer to get acquainted with his works.

K. Chukovsky

1 O. Henry Biography, by Alphonso Smith, Roe Professor of English In The University of Virginia Garden City, N.-Y., and Toronto.

O. Henry is an outstanding American writer, prose, the author of popular novel, characterized by subtle humor and unexpected junctions.

William Sydney Porter was born on September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Three years old, he lost his mother who was dead from tuberculosis. Later he fell under the custody of his aunt on his father. After school, he studied at the pharmacist, worked at the pharmacy from uncle. After three years, I left Texas, I tried different professions - I worked on the ranch, served in the land administration. Then she worked as a cashier and a bank account in the bank in the Texas city of Austin. The first literary experiments relate to the beginning of the 1880s. In 1894, the porter begins to publish in an ocene a humorous weekly Rolling Stone, almost entirely filling it with its own essays, jokes, verses and drawings. A year later, the magazine closed, at the same time Porter was dismissed from the bank and brought to the court due to the shortage, although she was reimbursed by his relatives. After the accusation in the waste, he was hiding from law enforcement officers in Honduras, then in South America. Upon returning to the United States was convicted and imprisoned by the Columbus state of Ohio, where he spent three years (1898-1901).

In prison, Porter worked in Lazarut and wrote stories, looking for a pseudonym. In the end, he opted for O. Henry (often incorrectly recorded like the Irish surname - O'Henry). The origin of it is not entirely clear. The writer himself argued in an interview that Henry's name was taken from a column of secular news in the newspaper, and the initial O. was chosen as the easiest letter. He reported one of the newspapers that O. decoded as Olivier (French name Olivier), and indeed, several stories he published there under the name Olivier Henry. According to other sources, this is the name of the famous French pharmacist Etienne Henry, the medical directory of which was popular at the time. Another hypothesis put forward a writer and scientist Guy Davenport: "O. Henry "is nothing more than a reduction in the prison name, where the author was sitting - Ohio Penitentiary.

The first story under this pseudonym is the "Christmas Dick-Svistunian Christmas Gift", printed in 1899 at MC Clure's Magazine, - he wrote in prison. The only novel O. Henry - "Kings and Cabbage" - came out in 1904. He followed the collections of the stories: "Four million" (1906), "Burning lamp" (1907), "West Heart" (1907), "Voice of the City" (1908), "Noble Rog" (1908), "Ways of Fate" (1909), "Favorites" (1909), "Accurate Cases" (1910) and "Conditions" (1910).

O. Henry occupies an exceptional place in American literature as a master of the "Short Story" genre (Short Story). Before the death of O. Henry expressed the intention to move to a more complex genre - to the novel: everything that I wrote is still, it's just a pampering, a pen test, compared to what I will write in a year. In creativity, however, these sentiments did not appear by anything, and O. Henry remained an organic artist "Small" genre, story. It is not by chance that, of course, in this period, the writer first began to be interested in social problems and revealed his negative attitude towards the bourgeois society. Heroes O. Henry are diverse: millionaires, cowboys, speculators, clerks, bags, gangsters, financiers, politicians, writers, artists, artists, workers, engineers, firefighters - replace each other. The skillful constructor of the plot, O. Henry does not show the psychological side of what is happening, the actions of his characters do not receive deep psychological motivation, which further strengthens the surprise of the final. O. Henry is not the first original "short story" master, he only developed this genre. The originality of O. Henry manifested itself in the brilliant use of jargon, sharp spells and expressions and in the overall color of the dialogues. In the life of the writer, the "short story" in his style began to degenerate into the scheme, and by the 1920s turned into a purely commercial phenomenon: the "methodology" of its production was taught in colleges and universities, numerous manuals were published and so on.

O. Henry Award - Annual Literary Prize for the Best Story (Short Story). Instituted in 1918 and named after the American writer O. Henry, a famous master of the genre. For the first time, the prize was awarded in 1919. Awarded to the stories of American and Canadian authors, published in American and Canadian magazines. Stories are published in the Collection of The O. Henry Prize Stories. The winners in different years became Capote, William Falkner, Flannery O'Connor, and others.

The literary premium "Dara Volkhvov" is a contest of a short story in Russian, following the plot formula of the well-known stories of O. Henry "Love + voluntary victim + an unexpected junction." The competition was established in 2010 by the editions of Russian-speaking publications "New Journal" and "New Russian Word", the contest coordinator was prosecated by Vadim Yarmolinets. Despite the New York origin, the competition, according to the Yarmolinse, was conceived as addressed to Russian writers of the whole world.