Godina izdanja: Ostalo
ISBN: Ostalo
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

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O. Henri
Priče na engleskom


William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American short story writer.

O. Henry
Portrait by W. M. Vanderweyde, 1909
Portrait by W. M. Vanderweyde, 1909
Born
William Sidney Porter
September 11, 1862
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
Died
June 5, 1910 (aged 47)
New York City, US
Pen name
O. Henry, Olivier Henry, Oliver Henry[1]
Occupation
Writer
Language
English
Nationality
American
Genre
Short story
Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. He moved to Texas in 1882, where he met his wife, Athol Estes, with whom he had two children. In 1902, after the death of his wife, Porter moved to New York, where he soon remarried. It was while he was in New York that Porter`s most intensive writing period occurred, with Porter writing 381 short stories.

Porter`s works include `The Gift of the Magi`, `The Duplicity of Hargraves`, and `The Ransom of Red Chief`. His stories are known for their surprise endings and witty narration. Porter also wrote poetry and non-fiction.

Porter`s legacy includes the O. Henry Award, an annual prize awarded to outstanding short stories.

Biography

Stories Edit


Portrait used as frontispiece in Waifs and Strays (posthumous, 1917)
O. Henry`s stories frequently have surprise endings. In his day he was called the American answer to Guy de Maupassant. While both authors wrote plot twist endings, O. Henry`s stories were considerably more playful, and are also known for their witty narration.

Most of O. Henry`s stories are set in his own time, the early 20th century. Many take place in New York City and frequently feature characters with blue-collar jobs, such as policemen and waitresses. The settings may vary widely, with characters roaming the cattle-lands of Texas, exploring the art of the con-man, or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in turn-of-the-century New York. O. Henry had a gift for creating descriptions with economy and grace.

Cabbages and Kings was his first collection of stories, followed by The Four Million. The second collection opens with a reference to Ward McAllister`s claim that there were `...only `Four Hundred` people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the Four Million.` To O. Henry, everyone in New York counted.

He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called `Bagdad-on-the-Subway`,[7] and many of his stories are set there—while others are set in small towns or in other cities.

His final work was `Dream`, a short story intended for the magazine The Cosmopolitan. It was never completed.[8]

Among his most famous stories are:

`The Gift of the Magi` is about a young couple, Jim and Della, who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim`s watch; while unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his own most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della`s hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied, re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was written.
`The Ransom of Red Chief` in which two men kidnap a boy of ten years old. The boy turns out to be so spoiled and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy`s father $250 to take him back.
`The Cop and the Anthem` about a New York City hobo named Soapy who sets out to get arrested so that he can be a guest of the city jail instead of sleeping out in the cold winter. Despite his best efforts at committing petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and `flirting` with a young prostitute, Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Dejected, he stops in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life; however, he is charged with loitering, and sentenced to three months in prison.
`A Retrieved Reformation` tells the tale of safecracker Jimmy Valentine, a man recently freed from prison. He goes to a town bank to case it before he robs it. As he walks to the door, he catches the eye of the banker`s beautiful daughter. They immediately fall in love and Valentine decides to give up his criminal career. He moves into the town, taking up the identity of Ralph Spencer, a shoemaker. Just as he is about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank. Jimmy and his fiancée and her family are at the bank, inspecting a new safe when a child accidentally gets locked inside the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine opens the safe to rescue the child. However, much to Valentine`s surprise, the lawman denies recognizing him and lets him go.
`The Duplicity of Hargraves` tells the story of the Talbots, a father and daughter from the Old South who move to Washington, DC, newly poor after the Civil War. An actor, Hargraves, offers Mr. Talbot money, which he is too proud to accept. But when Talbot is approached by an old man, a former slave who gives him money to settle an old family debt, he accepts it. It is later revealed the Hargraves secretly portrayed the slave.
`The Caballero`s Way` in which Porter`s most famous character, the Cisco Kid, is introduced. It was first published in 1907 in the July issue of Everybody`s Magazine and collected in the book Heart of the West that same year. In later film and TV depictions, the Kid would be portrayed as a dashing adventurer, perhaps skirting the edges of the law, but primarily on the side of the angels. In the original short story, the only story by Porter to feature the character, the Kid is a murderous, ruthless border desperado, whose trail is dogged by a heroic Texas Ranger. The twist ending is, unusually for Porter, tragic.


O. Henry je bio književni pseudonim koji je koristio američki pisac William Sydney Porter (11. septembar 1862 – 5. jun 1910). Najpoznatiji je po novelama koje su se odlikovale simpatijama za likove, duhovitošću i domišljatim iznenadni obratima na svom završetku. Najpoznatije od njih su sakupljene u zbirku pod nazivom Cabbages and Kings, u kojoj je, djelomično inspiriran svojim izgnanstvom u Hondurasu zbog optužbe za pronevjeru, prvi upotrijebio izraz banana republika. Po O. Henryju je danas nazvana godišnja nagrada O. Henry koja se udjeljuje najbolji autorima novela.


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