Story 2 of 12 · United States of America · 1905
The Gift of the Magi
Who it suits: Every age.
A young couple in New York have almost no money, and each sells the one thing they own that they love most, to buy a Christmas present for the other. O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter, who was born in North Carolina in 1862, worked as a pharmacist, a bank clerk and a newspaper writer in Texas, and moved to New York in 1902. There he wrote a story a week for the New York Sunday World, and “The Gift of the Magi” appeared in its pages on 10 December 1905.
The story gives its own figures: Della has one dollar and eighty-seven cents, Jim earns twenty dollars a week, and they rent a furnished flat at eight dollars a week.
The title refers to the three wise men, or Magi, who brought gifts to the infant Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. In his last paragraph O. Henry calls the Magi the inventors of Christmas presents, and then explains why Jim and Della were wiser givers than the Magi themselves.
In the book, The Gift of the Magi is printed in full with eight notes beside the words they explain, its map, its city view and its illustration.
