And he began a lifelong practice of roaming the streets, hanging out in bars (he was a prodigious drinker, with a reputation for being able to handle his liquor), and observing life after dark. It seems to have been love at first sight-something that happens more than once in O. Henry stories. He later published a number of stories set in the West. Soon afterward, he moved to Texas and worked on a ranch, although he spent much of his time there reading. At nineteen, he was licensed as a pharmacist (his uncle’s occupation), and his stories have occasional references to drugs and medications, many of which can look fictional to a layperson but are apparently accurate. People found him affable, unpretentious, and somewhat inscrutable.Īs a writer, Porter was identified with New York City, where more than a hundred of his stories are set, but he was born in the Confederacy, in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1862, and he retained, as you can see in some of his stories, the racial prejudices of a white Southerner of his time. He was not a recluse, but he did not like to be the center of attention. The pseudonym was part of that effort, but Porter also avoided being photographed, rarely gave interviews, and steered clear of situations where someone might pry into his past. The writer-his real name was William Sidney Porter-had a secret, and he spent most of his adult life trying to conceal it. The story of the writer who called himself O. Henry could almost be an O. Henry story.
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