William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, was an American short story writer. William Sidney Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. He changed the spelling of his middle name to Sydney in 1898. As a child, Porter was always reading, everything from classics to dime novels; his favourite works were Lane's translation of One Thousand and One Nights and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. Porter's friend Richard Hall became Texas Land Commissioner and offered Porter a job. Porter started as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office. The salary was enough to support his family, but he continued his contributions to magazines and newspapers. In the GLO building, he began developing characters and plots for such stories as "Georgia's Ruling" and "Buried Treasure". Cabbages and Kings is a 1904 novel made up of interlinked short stories. It takes its title from the poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter", featured in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. This work is O. Henry's first published volume and is considered to be his only novel. The plot is composed of several short stories, which were inspired by the author's six-month stay in Honduras in the late 1890s. The overarching storyline concerns the townsfolk, who struggle to bring the fallen Anchurian president to justice. The stories also tell of the mystery of a stash of stolen cash from the federal reserve. Listen online to free English audiobook "Cabbages and Kings” on our website to experience great work of classics!
