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    A Study Guide for O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation"
    A Study Guide for O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation"
    A Study Guide for O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation"
    Ebook39 pages29 minutes

    A Study Guide for O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535817134
    A Study Guide for O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for O. Henry's "A Retrieved Reformation" - Gale

      10

      A Retrieved Reformation

      O. Henry

      1903

      Introduction

      A Retrieved Reformation (1903) is considered a classic, though minor, entry in the canon of prolific short story writer O. Henry. The story focuses on Jimmy Valentine, a skilled thief and safecracker who leaves behind his life of crime for the love of a small-town woman named Annabel Adams. Jimmy assumes a new identity, finds a new, respectable life in Elmore, Arkansas, and plans to marry Annabel and move West with her. But his plans go awry when Jimmy is forced to crack one more bank vault when his fiancé's niece accidentally becomes locked in one at his future father-in-law's bank.

      A Retrieved Reformation uses O. Henry's favored literary devices, such as word play and twist of fate, to explore ideas about identity, right versus wrong, and how the power of love can change a man. A Retrieved Reformation was probably inspired by a story told to O. Henry by a cellmate when the author was serving time in the Ohio Federal Penitentiary after being convicted of embezzlement in 1898. Though O. Henry began writing and publishing short stories while in prison, A Retrieved Reformation was probably written in New York City where he moved in 1902 after his release from prison.

      A Retrieved Reformation was originally published under the title A Retrieved Reform in the April 1903 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. Since that time, it has been reprinted and included in many anthologies. For example, the story was included in The Best Short Stories of O. Henry, published in 1994. A Retrieved Reformation also was adapted by Paul Armstrong as a play, Alias Jimmy Valentine (1909), which became better known than the story and inspired a series of plays about criminals in the early 1900s. These plays, in turn, were a primary source of inspiration for gangster movies of the 1930s.

      Author Biography

      O. Henry is the pseudonym of William Sydney Porter, who was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was the son of Dr. Algernon Porter and his wife, Mary Jane Virginia. Henry's mother died when he was three years old. His alcoholic father left his medical practice to try to become an inventor. He failed. As a result, O. Henry was raised primarily by his grandmother and an aunt, and his education was limited to what he learned at a school run by

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