The Four Million for English learners: level, words and how to read it
O. Henry’s 1906 collection contains “The Gift of the Magi” and 24 more short stories about ordinary New Yorkers, each with a twist at the end. They are short, but the language is playful, slangy and full of rare words. Here is how difficult it is.
- Author
- O. Henry
- Published
- 1906
- Level
- B2–C1
- Words
- 52,591
- Stories
- 25
- Reading time
- ≈ 6 h
Read The Four Million in Booklex
Free in Booklex: tap any word for its translation in context.
What the book is about
The title is a joke: a New York socialite once claimed that only “four hundred” people in the city really mattered. O. Henry answers that all four million inhabitants are worth writing about: shop girls, clerks, waiters, tramps and policemen.
The most famous story is “The Gift of the Magi”, about a poor young couple who each sell their most precious possession to buy the other a Christmas present. Others include “The Cop and the Anthem”, about a tramp trying to get arrested so he can spend the winter in prison, and “After Twenty Years”, about two friends who meet again on a dark street.
Themes
- Ordinary people. Shop girls and clerks get the romance and drama usually given to the rich.
- Money and love. Many stories ask what people will give up for love when they have almost nothing.
- New York. The city of 1900–1906 with its cabs, boarding houses, parks and restaurants.
- Surprise endings. O. Henry’s famous twist in the last lines.
How hard is The Four Million to read in English?
How many unknown words will you meet? With a vocabulary of about 2,000 words, roughly 19 in every hundred, since those words cover 80.8% of the text. With 5,000 words it is about 12 in a hundred, with 10,000 about 7. Character names are not counted.
Measured by vocabulary alone, the book is C1–C2: that is the level at which almost every word is already familiar (why 98% matters). Tap-to-translate covers the rest, so you can start at B2–C1. On our list it sits between White Fang, which is a little easier, and Moby-Dick, which is a little harder.
What is hard: O. Henry loves long, ornate words used for comic effect, street slang of 1900s New York and characters who speak in dialect (ye, missis). It has one of the lowest coverages on our list: the 10,000 most common words cover about 93% of the text. What helps: every story is short, usually 1,500 to 3,000 words, so you can read one in a sitting, and the endings are worth the effort.
Our take: C1–C2 for the vocabulary, but the stories are short. From B2, start with “The Gift of the Magi” and see how it feels.
Words to know before you start
The book’s own vocabulary: frequent in this text, much less common elsewhere. Ten minutes with this list makes the opening chapters smoother.
| Word | Meaning | Times in the book |
|---|---|---|
| policeman | a police officer | 37 |
| rosy | pink; hopeful | 17 |
| odour | a smell | 11 |
| typewriter | a machine for typing letters | 10 |
| skylight | a window in a roof | 9 |
| countenance | a face, a facial expression (formal) | 8 |
| stenographer | a secretary who writes in shorthand | 7 |
| hansom | a two-wheeled horse cab | 5 |
| vaudeville | a show with songs, comedy and dancing | 4 |
| magi | the three wise men who brought gifts to baby Jesus | 4 |
How to read it in the original
- Start with “The Gift of the Magi”. It is the second story, the most famous and one of the clearest.
- Enjoy the big words as jokes. When O. Henry uses a grand word for a small thing, that is the point.
- Read one story in one sitting. The twist only works if you remember the beginning.
- Do not save every word. Many rare words appear once; save only the ones you meet again.
The first line
Tobin and me, the two of us, went down to Coney one day, for there was four dollars between us, and Tobin had need of distractions.
O. Henry, The Four Millionwent down totravelled tophrase in context
Tap a highlighted word
The book opens with “Tobin’s Palm” and the voice of a working-class narrator: note the grammar of Tobin and me … went and there was four dollars. Spoken English of the street, not a mistake.
Frequently asked questions
Is The Four Million hard to read in English?
The vocabulary is demanding, about C1–C2, because of O. Henry’s playful big words and street slang. But each story is short, so with tap-to-translate you can start from B2.
What English level do I need for The Four Million?
B2–C1 with tap-to-translate. By vocabulary alone the book is C1–C2. If it feels too hard, start with White Fang, which is a little easier.
