The stories that make up the present volume have for forty years
remained unnoticed in the files of the _Houston Post_. The general
belief that O. Henry was simply a columnist on the Post is probably
the reason for their being overlooked. The idea that his column
appeared regularly has, furthermore, tended to dismiss the question of
what sort of work he really did on the paper. When I examined the
files of the Post, I was surprised to find that the column "Some
Postscripts" was often missing. In February, 1896, it came out only
four times, in April seven, in June three. In spite of this
irregularity Will Porter's salary had gradually been raised from $15
to $25 a week.
Here is a situation which has only one logical explanation. O. Henry
must have done other work in order to draw this steadily increasing
weekly salary. A close examination of the Houston Post files from
October 19, 1895, to June 22, 1896, reveals a mass of material,
heretofore unidentified, as unmistakably the work of Will Porter.
What first attracts the eye is the abundance of unsigned comic
drawings and clever cartoons. The style of these drawings is
unquestionably O. Henry's. We know from various sources that he was
constantly drawing pictures, and we have a positive statement from
Colonel R. M. Johnston, under whom Will Porter worked on the Houston
Post, that his ability to draw cartoons was called into requisition
soon after he joined the staff of the Post. Some of the best of these
cartoons depict the political situation of the time. Others are
entirely independent of politics and point to the development of the
present-day comic strips in all newspapers. Sometimes they portray
character traits and are accompanied by rhymed quips. At other times
they are used to illustrate lengthy stories. These stories, of course,
were composed by Will Porter, and from them the selections for this
volume have been made.
The word-usage, sentence-structure, mythological allusion,
plot-manipulation, character types, and central ideas that
characterize O. Henry's short stories generally, are also plainly
recognizable in these selections from the _Houston Post_. For example,
"A Tragedy" not only turns on a pun, as O. Henry's stories often do,
but is based upon the story of The Arabian Nights, which later colored
O. Henry's whole conception of New York City, Little-Old-Bagdad-on-
the-Subway. The central idea of "An Odd Character," the story of a
tramp who claims to be 241 years old, appeared later in "The Enchanted
Kiss" and "Door of Unrest."
The characters of these earlier stories--shop-girls, Irish policemen,
crooks, tramps, sheep-men, cowmen, drunkards, pharmacists, doctors,
newspaper reporters, dudes--are practically identical with many of
those used in later O. Henry stories. Likewise, O. Henry's propensity
for the use of the "envelope structure," the sort provided by the
pilgrimage in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and "narrated development,"
or the telling of the story by one of the characters, is very much in
evidence in these _Houston Post_ stories, as in a number of his later
acknowledged works. For example, in "The Mirage on the Frio" a
sheep-man from La Salle County tells his story to a group of men on a
Buffalo Bayou fishing party; and later in Cabbages and Kings the story
of "The Shamrock and the Palm" is told by the Irishman Clancy to a
group of fellow Caucasians who have met at the end of a tropical day.
A large amount of internal evidence, moreover, points emphatically to
O. Henry as the author of these pieces. They have the unmistakable
stylistic qualities, the humorous point of view, the unexpected
climaxes of O. Henry, After a careful and detailed study of every
single piece of the material here reproduced, along with the
application of various stylistic tests, I was thoroughly convinced of
the authenticity of its authorship. In order to support my own
convictions, however, I consulted experts who have been students of O.
Henry for years. Dr. L. W. Payne, Jr., of The University of Texas, Dr.
Vernon Loggins, of Columbia University, and Dr. Dorothy Scarborough,
also of Columbia and compiler of many books of short stories, examined
photostatic copies which I had made of the material. They are
unanimous in the opinion that the authorship of both the drawings with
their legends and the articles and stories may be safely attributed to
O. Henry's pen.
The nature of the material included in this volume determined the
arrangement of the book into three parts. The stories in the first
part show that Will Porter had already discovered the technique that
made him famous as O. Henry. The sketches in the second part show O.
Henry at work-gathering story material from his observations of life.
Will Porter's ventures into the realm of newspaper poetry, I have
included in order to illustrate the principles set forth in his
article "Newspaper Poets," also reprinted here. As far as I know, this
article is the only bit of serious literary criticism ever written by
O. Henry. It is noteworthy also as the only article in the _Houston
Post_ which was ever signed in full by "W. S. Porter." A more detailed
treatment of this and allied topics concerning O. Henry's life in
Texas may be found in my O. Henry in Texas, designed as a companion
volume to the present book.