The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 143
576 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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THE
SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
VOL. XLIII OCTOBER, 1939 No. 2
The publication committee and the editors disclaim responsibility for views expressed
by contributors to THE QUARTERLY
0. HENRY IN AUSTIN
TRUEMAN O'QUINN
It is no longer new or original to say that 0. Henry, the author
of more than 250 short stories, also wrote the life of William
Sidney Porter, erstwhile ranch hand, druggist, bookkeeper, drafts-
man, bank clerk, newspaperman, publisher and fugitive from
justice.
Not only to the student of 0. Henry, but even to the casual
reader of his stories-if comparison is made with the characters
and incidents of Porter's own life-it quickly becomes obvious
that in writing the popular fiction of his day, 0. Henry sharply
etched with accurate design the pathos, humor, hopes, ambitions,
loves, successes, defeats of the tragic life of the great humorist. At
the height of his remarkable writing career in New York, 0. Henry
continued to tell the story of Will Porter, who spent 15 years in
Texas, of which nearly 12 years were lived in Austin.
Will Porter came to Austin in the spring of 1884. He was then
22 years old, and had spent his first two years in Texas on the
Hall ranch in LaSalle County, near Cotulla. Dick Hall had sold
out and moved to Florence, in Williamson County, but Porter
stopped off in Austin where he remained-except for 10 months
in Houston and 7 months a fugitive-until April, 1898, when
he was taken away to serve a five-year sentence for alleged embez-
zlement of bank funds.
Let 0. Henry introduce us to the man whose thorough, unrelent-
ing methods as a bank examiner were the undoing of Will Porter,
paying and receiving teller of the First National Bank of Austin:
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940, periodical, 1940; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101111/m1/157/?rotate=270: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.