# Bill Nye -- OHenry, MTwain **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 28, 2026, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-nye-ohenry-mtwain/1028834 "2026-03-28T01:30:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2026, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-nye-ohenry-mtwain/1028834/1 "2026-03-28T01:30:16Z")
I found 0. Henry when I was young, with “Cabbages and Kings”, later, I read the famous short stories, and formed the opinion that he was a short story writer who had tried his hand at “a novel”, but was limited in his ability. Still later, I realized that “Cabages and Kings” came before his well-known short stories, which came before his later short stores – he started strong, then worked for a living. Now I’ve found his early newspaper work, which demonstrates that he started out as a newspaper humorist, who thought he had a novel in him. And in among the newspaper humour, an obit for Bill Nye. And with justice: I see that 0’Henry was strongly influenced by Bill Nye, given that Nye was publishing just at the right time to influence William Porter (O. Henry). And then Nye is an intermediate in a genre that stretches back to “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” – that is a long-form short story, but before that Clemens was writing newspaper homour. This also gives me a context for “The Judges Shirt”, which has been mentioned on this board before. I’ve never thought of this as an “American Genre” before, but I’ve read English humour from the same period, and it doesn’t exactly match. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2026, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-nye-ohenry-mtwain/1028834/2 "2026-03-28T01:46:28Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > And in among the newspaper humour, an obit for Bill Nye. And with justice: I see that 0’Henry was strongly influenced by Bill Nye, given that Nye was publishing just at the right time to influence William Porter (O. Henry). I was so confused when I read this. The Science Guy??? And then I learned that there was _another_ Bill Nye. > **[Edgar Wilson Nye](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Wilson_Nye)** > > Edgar Wilson "Bill" Nye (August 25, 1850 – February 22, 1896) was an American humorist. He was also the founder and editor of the Laramie Boomerang. > Nye was born in Shirley, Maine. His parents removed to a farm on the St. Croix river in northern Wisconsin in 1852, and he was educated at River Falls, Wisconsin, where he studied law. He moved to Wyoming Territory, and was admitted to the bar at Laramie City, Wyoming Territory in 1876. There he served as justice of the peace, superintendent of scho... ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2026, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-nye-ohenry-mtwain/1028834/3 "2026-03-28T01:46:57Z")
I’ve always considered O. Henry to be in the same genre as Saki (H.H. Munro), who was definitely British and like Nye also started in newspapers. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2026, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-nye-ohenry-mtwain/1028834/4 "2026-03-28T05:46:32Z")
I can see where Saki and O.Henry end up at approximately the same place, and approximately the same time, although the characters they write are very different. But I don’t think that Saki is ever really anything like “The Celebrated Frog” or “The Judges Shirt”. It’s Bill Nye that I think is the centre of a uniquely American genre. Porter started there, which is how I found Nye, and Clemmens started there, which was a development of even earlier American humour. I think that American literature converged with British literature, but I think there was (what now appears to be) a broad river of 1800’s American humour that was distinctly American (not like Punch, or Vanity Fair) ---
**Author:** ![Apodder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apodder/32/17727_2.png) [@Apodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apodder)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2026, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-nye-ohenry-mtwain/1028834/5 "2026-03-29T18:51:09Z")
THANK you! 😆 ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2026, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bill-nye-ohenry-mtwain/1028834/6 "2026-03-29T21:58:01Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > I think that American literature converged with British literature, but I think there was (what now appears to be) a broad river of 1800’s American humour that was distinctly American (not like Punch, or Vanity Fair) That’s a fair argument. On the other side, Porter (O. Henry) was plainly influenced by French short-story master Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893). Porter may well have borrowed some of his famous twist endings from Guy. Having just read a lot of Porter (see Marketplace for my edition of Sixes and Sevens) I can report that he went further with the “characters speaking regional dialects” than fits modern tastes. Like Twain, Porter traveled widely in the USA and employed what he experienced to create Local Color in his stories. And as @Melbourne points out, 1800’s humor that was distinctly American went along with all this.