O. Henry

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O. Henry

O. Henry (actually William Sydney Porter ; born September 11, 1862 in Greensboro , North Carolina , † June 5, 1910 in New York City ) was an American writer .

Life

William Sydney Porter was born the son of a doctor. Since the age of 16 he worked in various positions (salesman, cowboy , bank clerk). Found guilty of embezzlement, he fled to Honduras , but returned because of his wife's illness and was serving a multi-year sentence in Ohio State Prison . Dismissed on July 24, 1901, he took up a position as a journalist for the Houston Post and soon became one of the highest paid writers in the United States.

His pseudonym “O. Henry ”he found in a drug manual in 1899 when he was training to be a pharmacist's assistant in Ohio State Prison .

Artistic creation

In his work Kohlköpf und Caballeros , published in 1904 and set in the fictional Central American Republic of Anchura, whose real model is Honduras, O. Henry coined the term banana republic .

The most important collection of his New York stories appeared in 1906 under the title The Four Million . With four million the population of New York is meant, whereby he opposed the view that only the upper class of society is interested in literature. Many of O. Henry's best stories were made into films and continue to be published.

You play in a dark environment. The heroes live on the edge of the subsistence level and are also confronted with desperate situations at the beginning of the plot. In the closing punch, Henry almost always found a happy solution to the stories. The author's sympathy went to the little shop girls, the shabby artists whom O. Henry drew carefully and with a certain sentimental cheerfulness.

In addition, O. Henry also wrote short stories that tell of life in the Wild West. In The Caballero's Way , the fictional character the Cisco Kid first appeared, who later became a popular figure in numerous films, a TV series and comics.

O. Henry had a perfect command of the genre of the short story of his time, often parodying and commenting on it. Although he was often identified with the trivialized short story of his time and was therefore heavily attacked, he was also a pioneer of the modern short prose of Sherwood Anderson or Ernest Hemingway .

The surprising twists and turns in several works established his reputation as a master of the literary twist .

O. Henry Prize

The O. Henry Prize is a literary prize for English-language short stories that has been awarded annually since 1919.

Works (selection in German)

  • Bluff . Short stories. Translated by Paul Baudisch. Kiepenheuer, Potsdam 1926
  • Fools of luck . Roman (= Cabbages and Kings ). Translated by Lina Horn and Ruth Haemmerling. Hess, Berlin-Dahlem 1953
    • Newly translated as: cabbages and caballeros . From the American by Günter Löffler . New life, Berlin 1979
  • Behind the green door . Stories. From the American by Karin Rupe. List, Munich 1955
  • Angel of Innocence from Broadway . Stories. Translated from the American by Christine Hoeppener. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1961
  • Spring à la carte . 12 stories, selected and translated by Siegfried Schmitz. Nymphenburger, Munich 1961
  • The voice of the city . Short stories. Reclam, Leipzig 1962; 7 A. 1988, ISBN 3-379-00367-0
  • Rolling stones do not create moss . Stories. Translated by Thomas Eichstätt. List, Munich 1966 (= The Books of the Nineteen , Volume 143)
  • Collected Stories . German by Annemarie Böll , Heinrich Böll , Thomas Eichstätt, Wilhelm Höck, Theo Schumacher and Hans Wollschläger . 3 volumes, Walter, Olten 1973/74:

Film adaptations

  • 1928: In Old Arizona
  • 1940: Viva Cisco Kid
  • 1952: Five pearls
  • 1958: Holidays for the model boy ( Le grand chef )
  • 1994: Silent Love
  • 1999: The Ransom of Red Chief
  • 2000: By Courier

literature

  • Ethel Stephens Arnett: O. Henry from Polecat Greek. The first ed. Of this book was publ. Sept. 11, 1962, as a memorial to William Sydney Porter on his 100th birthday . Greensboro, NC: Piedmont Press 1963.
  • Karen Charmaine Blansfield: Cheap rooms and restless hearts. A study of formula in the urban tales of William Sydney Porter . Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press 1988, ISBN 0-87972-420-X
  • Eugene Current-Garcia: O. Henry. A study of the short fiction . New York: Twayne et al. a. 1993, ISBN 0-8057-0859-6 (= Twayne's studies in short fiction series; 49)
  • Boris M. Éjchenbaum: O. Henry and the theory of the short story . Ann Arbor: University 1968. (= Michigan slavic contributions; 1)
  • Joseph Gallegly: From Alamo Plaza to Jack Harris's Saloon. O. Henry and the Southwest he knew . The Hague: Mouton 1970 (= Studies in American literature; 27)
  • Richard C. Harris: William Sydney Porter. (O. Henry). A reference guide . Boston: GK Hall. 1980. ISBN 0-8161-8006-7
  • Wolfgang Kreiter: On the question of realism in the short stories of O. Henrys . Dissertation University of Berlin 1956.
  • Gerald Langford: aka O. Henry. A biography of William Sidney Porter . New York: Macmillan 1957.
  • Eugene Hudson Long: O. Henry, the man and his work . Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press 1949.
  • Richard O'Connor: O. Henry. The legendary life of William S. Porter . Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1970.
  • Charles Alphonso Smith: O. Henry biography . New York: Doubleday, Page 1925.

Web links

Commons : O. Henry  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Henry, O.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Porter, William Sydney (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Greensboro, North Carolina
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1910
Place of death New York City