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Published in McClure s Magazine, December, 1899; later collected in Roads of Destiny (1909). Approximately 3,200 words, 8pp. in pencil, closely written on rectos of unruled paper, with paragraph markings in left corner; a 15-line section of page 7 has been erased and written over. 1 vols. 22 x 15 cm. (8 5/8 x 6 inches). This story here entitled "Whistling Sam's Christmas Stocking," was first published in revised form as "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" in McClure's Magazine, December 1899, and later collected in Roads of Destiny (1909). This manuscript contains a few small corrections, and on page 7 of this manuscript a section has been erased and written over. This is an early version of the very first story published by William Sydney Porter under his pen name "O. Henry" a name destined to become practically synoymous with the short story. Porter had published a couple of stories earlier under his own name in newspapers, but this Christmas tale of a tramp who saves a plantation from arsonists was his first appearance in a national magazine, and it is the first time that his pseudonym "O. Henry" itself was ever used in print. O. Henry's first national story is a Christmas tale of redemption, and contains the trademark ironic twist at the end which characterized all of his subsequent stories. It is set in New Orleans on Christmas Eve, and tells the tale of a tramp who saves a local plantation from a robbery, and himself from his "reward" of a steady job. A comparison of the story as it appeared in the collection Roads of Destiny ten year later (1907) is revealing: the printed version is much expanded, far more detailed and polished than this manuscript of 1897, and the main character becomes "Whistling Dick" instead of "Whistling Sam." The story was written at a critical time in Porter's life after he was indicted on charges of embezzling funds from the First National Bank of Austin, he caught a train to New Orleans "where he unloaded bananas." After a brief period in Honduras and Mexico, "news of his wife's serious illness brought Porter back to Austin in 1897. In March of the next year he was sentenced to the Federal Penitentiary for five years." Based on the evidence of the envelope which accompanies the manuscript, Porter must have submitted the story to the magazine The Youth's Companion some time in June of 1897, when he was back in Austin awaiting trial, with a wife who was mortally ill. Later, in prison, he revised this story for McClure's, and his writing career took off as O. Henry. A precious and fragile survival from "the acknowledged master of the genre he so largely created" (Kunitz and Haycraft). Clarkson, pp. 37 38 Sheets are yellowing and brittle, a few small marginal chips, one larger chip from the upper right corner of the first leaf, with the loss of final two letters ( ng ) from the title and one letter from first line. Upper left corner of first page with old paper-clip stain, faint vertical folds. Accompanied by a torn envelope from "The Youth s Companion, Boston Mass.," addressed to "Mr. W.S. Porter / 211 E. 6th St. / Austin, Texas," postmarked Boston Jun. [?] 1897 and also bearing an Austin postmark on verso of June 14, 1897. In red half morocco folder Approximately 3,200 words, 8pp. in pencil, closely written on rectos of unruled paper, with paragraph markings in left corner; a 15-line section of page 7 has been erased and written over. 1 vols. 22 x 15 cm. (8 5/8 x 6 inches) Published in McClure s Magazine, December, 1899; later collected in Roads of Destiny (1909). Seller Inventory # 369785
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