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Why
did writer O. Henry end up in jail?
O.
Henry was the pseudonym of William Sydney Porter (1862-1910). Porter
grew
up in North Carolina, but moved to Texas in the 1880s. Like many
writers, the short
story author wasn't very good with money. That was a problem, because
before he
began writing stories, Porter was a bank teller by occupation. In
1894, some of the
money that passed through his hands turned up missing. He lost his
job, but at first it
looked like the whole thing might blow over. However two years later
he was
indicted on four counts of embezzlement.
Porter
fled to Honduras, but his wife was too sick with tuberculosis to
join him.
Six months later, he got word that his wife was dying, so he returned
to the United
States to be with her and face trial. She died; he was convicted
and sentenced to five
years in jail. It was sad for him, but a great day for American
literature. From his jail cell,
Porter began writing short stories and a New York daily paper eagerly
published them.
Porter had taken the pen name O. Henry, fearing that as he got progressively
more
famous somebody would dredge up his past and publicly humiliate
him.
While
it didn't help support his proclaimed innocence that he had fled
the country, his
defenders depicted him as being basically honest, just not very
good with money. There
is some support for that claim. Read the first three lines of his
most famous story,
"The
Gift of the Magi," in which he describes an impossible
set of change: "One
dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And 60 cents of it
was in pennies... "
O.
Henry was also famous for writing short stories such as "The
Last of the
Troubadours," and "The Ransom of Red Chief." His
short stories, known for their
careful plotting and surprise endings, appeared in magazines and
journals across
the country and were collected in such books as "Cabbages and
Kings" (1904),
"Heart of the West" (1907) and "The Voice of the
City" (1908).
Source:
"Just Curious, Jeeves"
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