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Introduction If
William Sydney Porter were alive today, this
is where you would find him. But since he has been dead for about ninety years,
it's unlikely that he is going to drop in on us, in the flesh, as they say.
If we want to hang out with Bill Porter - or O.Henry - if you prefer his pen-name,
we will have to take special measures. Resurrection,
you will surely agree, is a very special measure. Since
nobody has ever been cyber-resurrected before,
the procedures have not been put down on paper, like how to make a kite.
Or how to dance the Charleston. This
is a good reason for us to confess, right
up front, that we are going to need a lot of help in bringing the
resurrection off. We
have a bunch of the tools that must be considered crucial to
our coaxing O.Henry back into the land of living literature. For
example, we have all of his more than 300 short-stories. We
have lots of biographical material,
and first-hand stories about
The Great One from his closest friend, Al Jennings.
Jennings
met O.Henry when they were both serving time in the
Ohio Federal Penitentiary. Then they met again in New York
City, after they had both received pardons. We
have O.Henry commentaries, criticisms, eulogies, and publisher's
puffery, family photographs and imitations of the O.Henry
techniques in both plot creation and writing style. What
we don't have, (without
your help ) is a large enough reservoir of resurrective attraction to
pull
old Bill out of his swivel-chair in history, and sit him down with
us at the virtual Round
Table in the old Algonquin Hotel Bar.
Or at a late night meeting of the Recluse's
Club, that he invented to provide a venue for relaxed drinking
with compatible company, and which is precisely where he belongs. With your participation we can correct this single shortage. Pull
a computer up to our Virtual Round Table, and help us summon William
Sydney Porter - or O.Henry, if you
prefer - back to his place of literary celebrity that he so richly
deserves - and that has
been neglecting him for far too long.
Lorenzo
Dee Belveal - Edtor
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