"The Greatest Gift" is a 1943 short story written by Philip Van Doren Stern

Philip Van Doren Stern

Philip Van Doren Stern was an author, editor, and Civil War historian whose story "The Greatest Gift," published in 1943, inspired the classic Christmas film It's a Wonderful Life .-Early life:...

 which became the basis for the film It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern....

.

Plot summary

The story begins during the Holiday with George Pratt, a man who is unsatisfied with his life and ready to commit suicide, standing on a bridge. A strange, shabbily-dressed and well-mannered man approaches him, carrying a satchel. The man strikes up a conversation and George tells the man that he wishes he had never been born. The man tells him that his wish has been made official and that he was never born. The man tells George that he should take the satchel with him and pretend to be a door-to-door brush salesman when he sees anyone. When George returns home, he does as he is told and is shocked to discover that not only does his wife not know him, everyone who knew him took different and often negative steps in life because George had never been born: including his little brother, who he had saved in a pond accident and instead had died without George to save him. George offers "his wife" a complimentary upholstery brush, which she takes, and then he leaves the house after his wife's new husband tells him to leave. Upon his departure, his wife's son pretends to shoot him with a fake cap gun and shouts, "You're dead. Why won't you die?" George returns to the bridge and questions the man, who explains to him that he wanted more when he had already been given the greatest gift of all: the gift of life. George, now realizing the lesson, begs the man to return the gift of life and the man agrees to it. George returns home to check if the man did, in fact, change everything back to normal. Sure enough, everything is normal and he hugs his wife, and explains that he "thought he had lost her". She is confused, and as he is about to explain everything, his hand bumps a brush on the sofa behind him. Without turning around, George knows the brush was the one he had presented to her earlier.

History

Inspired by a dream, Stern wrote a 4,100-word short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 called "The Greatest Gift" in 1943 after working on it since the late 1930s. Unable to find a publisher, he sent the 200 copies he had printed as a 21-page booklet to friends as Christmas presents in December 1943. The story came to the attention of RKO Pictures

RKO Pictures

RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...

 producer David Hempstead, who showed it to actor Cary Grant

Cary Grant

Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

, who was interested in playing the lead role. RKO purchased the motion-picture rights for $10,000 in April 1944. After several screenwriters worked on adaptations, RKO sold the rights to the story in 1945 to Frank Capra

Frank Capra

Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...

's production company for the same $10,000, which he adapted into It's a Wonderful Life.

The story was first published as a book in December 1944, with illustrations by Rafaello Busoni. Stern also sold it to Reader's Scope magazine, which published the story in its December 1944 issue, and to the magazine Good Housekeeping

Good Housekeeping

Good Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...

, which published it under the title "The Man Who Was Never Born" in its January 1945 issue (published in December 1944).

External links

• Read the complete story at Zoetrope: All-Story
  Zoetrope: All-Story
  Zoetrope: All-Story is an American literary magazine that was launched in 1997 by Francis Ford Coppola. Blooming from Francis Coppola's "Crazy Idea Department," All-Story is devoted to showcasing the most promising voices in short-fiction...