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Elective English—III

Notes Among his most famous stories are:
“The Gift of 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 is 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.

Did u know? O Henry published 10 collections and over 600 short stories during his
lifetime.

Notes Porter gave various explanations for the origin of his pen name. In 1909, he gave an
interview to The New York Times, in which he gave an account of it:
It was during these New Orleans days that I adopted my pen name of O Henry. I said to a
friend, “I’m going to send out some stuff. I do not know if it amounts to much, so I want to
get a literary alias. Help me pick out a good one.” He suggested that we get a newspaper
and pick a name from the first list of notables that we found in it. In the society columns,
we found the account of a fashionable ball. “Here we have our notables,” said he. We
looked down the list and my eye lighted on the name Henry, “That’ll do for a last name,”
said I. “Now for a first name. I want something short. None of your three-syllable names
for me.” “Why don’t you use a plain initial letter, then?” asked my friend. “Good,” said I,
“O is about the easiest letter written, and O it is.”
A newspaper once wrote and asked me what the O stands for. I replied, “O stands for
Olivier, the French for Oliver.” And several of my stories accordingly appeared in that
paper under the name Olivier Henry.
Contd...

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