POPULARITY OF O. HENRY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12081, 9 August 1917, Page 8

POPULARITY OF O. HENRY.

. The appearand, of 0- Henry in the. motion pictures, says an Americ;m writer, is .1 phas, ; of one or the best-managed publicity and advertising campaigns the- publishing; business lias over known. From the day Sydney Porter died, his publishers have pushed the sale of his writings with great ingenuity and persistence. All sort's of editions have been brought, out, and all sorts of discussion launched and fostered. More people know about 0. Henry to-day, and are reading his writings, than over hoard of him during bis lifetime. Tho sale of his books, instead of dwindling after his death, as is the case, with most popular writers, has mounted steadily. Mora than six thousand dollars was paid to his family last year in royalties. If tho stories make as successful motion pictures as they promise to do, that sum will bo largely increased in ilio present year. A recent subject of journalistic and academic debate which would have brought unmixed joy to Sidney Porter himsolf was whether his works are or are not suitable for study in the collcgn courses devoted to tho art of writing short stories. Who more than Porter himself would appreciate this solemn ttem?;—"Tlie professors uro rijjlrt ifc

holding O. Henry an author whoso stories" notably exemplify essential technical characteristics of a gradually evolved kind of short fiction now commonly designated by students of formtypos a a the short story."