Sydney Porter, whose pen name was O. Henry, was an American journalist who lived during the years 1862 to 1910. For several years he wandered in the South and Southwest, gathering the many and varied experiences of a journalistic career. These he aptly used in his numerous short stories, and he was ever a beguiling story teller.
He finally settled down in New York City and there wrote his best stories. Instead of writing of the Four Hundred, or the social set of the great city, as so many other writers were fond of doing, with his clever pen he revealed to us through little sketches the real life of the four million others in New York. Laundresses, messenger boys, policemen, clerks, even the tramps ever present in the parks were pictured for us as real everyday people whom one could find anywhere. Read his stories in The Four Million, from which "The Gift of the Magi" is taken, for you will like them.
O. Henry, while his stories usually lack the qualities of enduring literature, those of a cultured style and a universal theme—a theme that will be true to human experience through the ages—is yet master of the composition of the short story. Examine "The Gift of the Magi" and you will find that it develops one main incident carried out in a single afternoon with all the necessary details compressed; that is, the details are suggested in a few words but not developed. The story has originality and appeals to the imagination of the reader, for the whole life of the two characters is suggested through this brief, rather touching sketch. The end, though it is a surprise and comes like the crack of a whip, was nevertheless carefully prepared for. Then the writer is through, and we are left with the feeling that we know this everyday young couple, who after all have the priceless gift, an unselfish love, which, hidden from the eyes of the world, glorifies their commonplace existence.
O. Henry approaches true literature here, for he has a theme that has lived and will ever live to uplift human life. His style too, influenced by his theme, is raised somewhat from his usual slangy expression.
The Gift of the Magi
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11, 1. The Magi. Wise men who brought gifts to the infant Christ as he lay in the manger at Bethlehem.
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13, 1. Queen of Sheba. A queen of Old Testament history, who is reported to have sought an alliance with Solomon, King of Israel, in the tenth century B.C., bringing to him fabulous gifts of gold and jewels.