Story

O’Henry’s Gift

Della is a young woman of limited income who is desperate to buy her partner a Christmas present on Christmas Eve. In order to gain money for the cause, she decides to sell her hair, however her sacrifice may prove to be a futile one. 

The Gift of the Magi  is originally a short story published in 1905, written by William Sydney Porter, better known by his pen name O. Henry. It stars a young couple that deals with the challenge of buying Christmas gifts for each other under difficult circumstances. The plot and its twist ending are well-known and have been the subject of various adaptations in time.
The story was initially published in The New York Sunday World under the title “Gifts of the Magi” and was first published in book form in the O. Henry Anthology The Four Million in April 1906.  It was allegedly written last minute, as O. Henry had custom, at Petes Tavern, New York.