O. Henry Introduction
All of the information presented in this slideshow
was taken from The Language of Literature
(McDougal Littell copyright 2006, pages 150153).
O. Henry - Character
• O. Henry is the author of the next story we are
going to read titled, “A Retrieved Reformation.”
• In some ways, his life parallels the life of the main
character of the story (Jimmy Valentine); in some
ways it doesn’t.
• Your job, after we have read the story, will be to
write the prompt for the essay question on the test.
• I am giving you this information and expect you to
incorporate it into the essay question (or the
answer)…
O. Henry
True or False –
O. Henry was born as William Sydney Porter.
• Answer – True
• O. Henry’s birth name was William Sydney Porter.
He was born in Greensboro, North Carolina in
1862, but later changed his name to O. Henry.
What would motivate someone to change their
name? Why do you think O. Henry changed his
name?
True or False –
William S. Porter’s mother raised him until he left
home at 18 years old.
Answer – False
• William S. Porter’s mother died when he was
three years old. He then went to live with his aunt
Lina who ran a school. While living with aunt
Lina, Porter developed a love for literature and
reading.
True or False – At the age of 19, Porter
became a licensed pharmacist.
• Answer – True
• At the age of 15, William left school to
begin his training as a pharmacist. His uncle
was also a pharmacist.
True or False – George Washington was president of
the United States the year O. Henry was born.
• Answer – False
• Abraham Lincoln was the president of the
United States the year O. Henry was born
(1862). The Civil War was also happening
at this time.
True or False – William Porter started The
Rolling Stone.
• Answer – True
• O. Henry did not begin the Rolling Stone
magazine that you may be familiar with;
however, he did start a weekly humorous
magazine named, The Rolling Stone, which
was a weekly and only existed for less than
a year before it went under.
Not this:
True or False – William S. Porter was arrested
and charged with a federal crime?
• Answer – True
• In 1896, O. Henry was arrested for stealing funds
from the bank he worked at. Supposedly, he used
these funds to help keep his newspaper afloat.
After his arrest, William S. Porter fled to
Honduras until his wife’s health began to fail. He
then returned to the United States to be by her side
until she passed away at the age of 29.
True or False – William S. Porter was given
sentence of five years in a federal prison.
• Answer – True
• William S. Porter was eventually found guilty of
embezzling money from the bank he worked at. In prison
he was treated differently than the other prisoners and was
allowed to sleep in his own quarters, away from the
general population. He was also given leave from the
prison and allowed to walk around town unsupervised.
Porter was released after serving three of his five year
sentence. It is after he was released that he changed his
name from William S. Porter to O. Henry.
True or False - O. Henry was a cartoonist, a writer,
and a cowboy.
• Answer – True
• O. Henry was a cartoonist, a writer, and a cowboy.
He often drew pictures of people in the town he
grew up in. He also spent time living on a friends
ranch in Texas. They say he was the only cowboy
to carry a dictionary in one pocket and a book of
poetry in the other.
True or False – O. Henry wrote about 300
short stories in his lifetime.
• Answer – True
• O. Henry wrote over three hundred short stories in
his life time; however, he died a poor man and had
only twenty-three cents to his name when he was
admitted to the hospital shortly before his death.