The Man Who Called Himself O. Henry

9 hrs. 53 min.

Language Russian

Author Nikolay Vnukov

Narrator Vladimir Samoylov

Description

It’s no problem if you haven’t read the short story by the American writer O. Henry “The Red-Skin Chief”—a fun tale about two swindlers who stole from a rich man a red-haired restless boy, his son, and what came of it. It’s no problem because you will definitely read this story—and you’ll want to read another one and another, and sooner or later you’ll learn about this wonderful writer. And you will certainly imagine him as a kind of reckless, smiling gentleman sitting in a cozy room surrounded by friends, telling his amusing stories. And you will almost certainly be wrong.

O. Henry didn’t like to use his real name. He avoided photojournalists and hardly ever met fellow writers. He talked about himself sparingly and reluctantly. When he died, biographers had to piece together the story of his life grain by grain. Grain by grain, this book had to be put together too—and by the author. In his work he used memories of the editor and friend of the writer, Robert Davis, memories of Sally Coleman, his wife, and the memoirs of Algie Jennings, a former train robber who, by the will of fate, turned out to be O. Henry’s closest person.

So, this book tells about who was hiding behind the pseudonym O. Henry, about his difficult life and equally difficult literary work, about America in the 1880s, and about the friendship of two people who became victims of injustice.