The Four Million

Henry, O., 1862-1910Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.3

Word count: 291K words
Chapters: 30

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Four Million by O. HenryAuthor: Henry, O., 1862-1910,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 1, 2001

Editor's review

O. Henry's The Four Million is a short story collection whose title refers to the four million ordinary New Yorkers; with humor and surprise endings the author sketches the lives of the urban lower classes, and its value lies in light narration that reveals ordinary people's hardship, kindness and reversals of fate. Its strengths are brevity and the ease of reading in short sittings, suitable for commuting or bedtime reading and as an introductory sample of American urban literature; the English text is available as a free eBook from Project Gutenberg, convenient for parallel reading and excerpting. When reading, note the irony and the design of the endings, and feel the author's gentle gaze on ordinary people.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Ordinary readers who enjoy short stories and plot twists
Literature lovers who want to understand American urban literature and O. Henry's style
Commuters or bedtime readers who need reading material in short fragments
Learners who use the English text to practice reading and analyzing fiction

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer long continuous narratives and need complete character arcs
Beginners who find reading the original English difficult and lack a parallel translation

Reading tips

Read each story independently, then look back at the ending's foreshadowing to see how the twist works.
Choose two or three stories and take notes on characters and scenes, comparing the author's common techniques for writing urban life.
Read one story per commute and keep the pace; there is no need to finish it all at once.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for readers with zero English?

Not very suitable. The original is in English short stories with somewhat literary vocabulary and sentence patterns, so zero-level readers may struggle; if you have intermediate reading ability or are willing to use notes and a translation, you can try reading slowly story by story.

What does the title The Four Million mean?

The title refers to the roughly four million ordinary New Yorkers. The author focuses not on prominent figures but on clerks, wanderers and ordinary city people, presenting the many faces of urban life.

Do I need to know American history to read this book?

Not systematically, but knowing that the stories mostly take place in early twentieth-century New York helps in understanding the characters' situations and the urban atmosphere; ordinary readers can start directly from plot and character relationships.

Comments

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About the author

Henry, O., 1862-1910 Author

O. Henry (1862–1910) was an American short-story writer whose real name was William Sydney Porter. He produced a large body of short fiction, and 16 of his works are held in this collection, including The Gift of the Magi, The Four Million, Heart of the West, The Gentle Grafter, Options, Sixes and Sevens, and The Trimmed Lamp, and Other Stories of the Four Million. His stories are mostly set in city life and the American West, with ingeniously constructed plots that often close on an unexpected twist. His language is humorous yet warm, and he excels at capturing the circumstances and feelings of ordinary people. The "O. Henry ending" is widely known and has had a lasting influence on the craft of the short story. It should be noted that public information on the specific details of his life and education is limited, and no conjecture is offered here.