William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry

The Gift of the Magi

by O. Henry
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Short story
Published in	The Four Million
Publication type	Anthology
Publisher	McClure, Phillips, and Company
Publication date	December 10, 1905 (newspaper); April 10, 1906 (book)^[1]
Text	The Gift of the Magi at Wikisource

"The Gift of the Magi" is a short story by O. Henry first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been popular for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time. The plot and its twist ending are well known; the ending is generally considered an example of comic irony. The story was allegedly written at Pete's Tavern^[2] on Irving Place in New York City.
The story was initially published in The New York Sunday World under the title "Gifts of the Magi" on December 10, 1905. It was first published in book form in the O. Henry Anthology The Four Million in April 1906.

Contents

• 
  1Plot
  
• 
  2Adaptations
  
  • 
    2.1Films
    
  • 
    2.2Other media
    
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  3References
  
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  4External links
  

Plot[edit]

Appearance in the 1906 anthology The Four Million, page 16.
On Christmas Eve, Della Young discovers that she has only $1.87 (equivalent to $56 in 2021) to buy a present for her husband Jim. She visits the nearby shop of a hairdresser, Madame Sofronie, who buys Della's long hair for $20 (about $600 in 2021). Della then uses the money to buy a platinum pocket watch chain for Jim. When Jim comes home from work that evening, Della admits to him that she sold her hair to buy him the chain. Jim gives Della her present-- a set of ornamental combs, which she will be unable to use until her hair grows back out. Della gives Jim the watch chain, and he tells her that he sold the watch to buy the combs. While the gifts that Jim and Della gave each other cannot be used, they know how far they went to show each other their love and how invaluable their love truly is. The story ends with the narrator comparing these sacrificial gifts of love with those of the biblical Magi.
Adaptations[edit]
Films[edit]

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  The Sacrifice (1909)
  
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  Love's Surprises Are Futile (1916)
  
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  The Gift of the Magi (1917)
  
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  Ustedes los ricos ("You, the Rich Ones") (1948) includes the tale as a small sub-plot
  
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  As a segment of O. Henry's Full House (1952)
  
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  The Gift of the Magi (1958)
  
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  The Gift of Love (1978)
  
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  Dary magów (Poland, 1972)
  
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  Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978)
  
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  I'll not be a gangster, love (Не буду гангстером, дорогая/Ne budu gangsterom, dorogaya, USSR, 1978),^[3]
  
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  Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999)^[4]
  
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  The Gift of the Magi (2004)
  
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  Raincoat (2004)
  
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  For the First Time (2010)^[5]
  
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  Love, a French movie, based some of its scenes on this story.
  
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  Darovete na vlahvite (2013) directed by Ivan Abadjiev.
  
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  The Gift of the Magi (2014) The Greek film directed by Ismene Daskarolis places it in the economic crisis of contemporary Greece.
  
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  Prem Puran (2019)