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Elective English–I

Notes Most of O. Henry’s stories are set in his own time, the early 20th century. Many take place in
New York City and deal for the most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen, waitresses,
etc.
O. Henry’s work is wide-ranging, and his characters can be found roaming the cattle-lands of
Texas, exploring the art of the con-man, or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in
turn-of-the-century New York. O. Henry had an inimitable hand for isolating some element of
society and describing it with an incredible economy and grace of language. Some of his best
and least-known work is contained in Cabbages and Kings, a series of stories each of which
explores some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy Central American town, while
advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another.

Cabbages and Kings was his first collection of stories, followed by The Four Million. The second
collection opens with a reference to Ward McAllister’s “assertion that there were only ‘Four
Hundred’ people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has
arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in
marking out the field of these little stories of the ‘Four Million.’” To O. Henry, everyone in
New York counted.

He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called “Bagdad-on-the-Subway,” and many
of his stories are set there—while others are set in small towns or in other cities.
Among his most famous stories are:

• “The Gift of the Magi” about a young couple who are short of money but desperately
want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable
possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim’s watch;
while unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his own most valuable possession, his watch, to
buy jewelled combs for Della’s hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied,
re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was
written.
• “The Ransom of Red Chief”, in which two men kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out
to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy’s father
$250 to take him back.
• “The Cop and the Anthem” about a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to
get arrested so that he can be a guest of the city jail instead of sleeping out in the cold
winter. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and “mashing”
with a young prostitute, Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he
pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life—
and is ironically charged for loitering and sentenced to three months in prison.
• “A Retrieved Reformation”, which tells the tale of safecracker Jimmy Valentine, recently
freed from prison. He goes to a town bank to case it before he robs it. As he walks to
the door, he catches the eye of the banker’s beautiful daughter. They immediately fall in
love and Valentine decides to give up his criminal career. He moves into the town,
taking up the identity of Ralph Spencer, a shoemaker. Just as he is about to leave to
deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives
at the bank. Jimmy and his fiancée and her family are at the bank, inspecting a new safe,
when a child accidentally gets locked inside the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his
fate, Valentine opens the safe to rescue the child. However, much to Valentine’s surprise,
the lawman denies recognizing him and lets him go.
• “The Duplicity of Hargraves”. A short story about a nearly destitute father and daughter’s
trip to Washington, D.C.

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