The Biography of O. Henry

O. Henry is the pen name of the American writer William Sydney Porter. He was born on September 11, 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. His life was full of sorrow from the early childhood. When William was three, his mother died. His father, a penniless physician, became to drink hard and soon turned into a good-for-nothing alcoholic. He was raised by his grandmother and aunt. He spent his childhood in North Carolina. He received only formal education at the school of his Aunt Lina, where he developed a lifelong love of books. But at the age of fifteen he had to leave school and begin to work in a drugstore of his uncle.