SOURCE: “‘The Gift of the Magi,’” in The Independent, Vol. 90, No. 3566, April 7, 1917, pp. 76–81.

In the following essay, Law asserts that “The Gift of the Magi” “illustrates a unique and artistic type of the short story, founded partly on French models, but springing more truly from the virile life and thought of America.”

Of all recent American short story writers none is more popular than O. Henry. At the age of forty, when he gained his public, he had but eight years more to live, but he made those last eight years a triumph of success. And altho he wrote so rapidly that his powers of production astonished every one, he could scarcely produce stories rapidly enough. The secrets of his great success lay in a wide observation of men, women and books; freedom from all literary conventions; humor and sympathy, and real genius in the story-telling art.

The...