SOURCE: “O. Henry,” in Aspects of the Modern Short Story: English and American, University of London Press, 1924, pp. 185–96.

In the following essay, Ward considers O. Henry's impact on the American short story and deems “The Gift of the Magi” the pinnacle of his literary achievement.

Many English readers in the present generation received their first introduction to the American language in O. Henry's pages. The American short story had lapsed into obscurity, so far as the rest of the world was concerned, after Bret Harte had run his course; and inasmuch as Ambrose Bierce was known to only a few on this side of the Atlantic, it was not until after O. Henry had settled down to write short stories—in the early years of the twentieth century—that the American scene again appeared in the world's eye through this form of fiction. There had been Henry James...