One Thousand Dollars

William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, published “One Thousand Dollars” in his 1908 collection of short stories The Voice of the City: Further Stories of the Four Million. The stories explore New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Believing every person had a story to tell, O. Henry wrote about the poor and the rich and the shared experience of being human. This study guide references the 1908 edition of “One Thousand Dollars,” published in The Voice of the City by Doubleday, Page, and Company.

The story begins with two men meeting in an attorney’s office. The younger, Young Gillian, is the nephew of the late Septimus Gillian, while the older man, Lawyer Tolman, serves as the executor of Septimus’s estate. Upon his uncle’s death, Gillian was left $1,000. Gillian, surprised by the specificity of the amount, notes the oddity of the sum. If the gift had been $10,000, he would celebrate but, he says, even “$50 would have been less trouble” (75). Gillian is then reminded by Tolman that, upon spending the $1,000, he must give a true account and report his expenditures per the stipulations of Septimus’s will.