Short Stories About Money: 10 Classics Explained
Quick answer: Ten classic short stories about money, from The Necklace and The Million Pound Bank Note to The Lottery Ticket and One Thousand Dollars, summarised and compared.
Money is the most honest subject in fiction because everyone in the story can count. A borrowed necklace, a lottery number, a single bank note: these stories turn on sums the reader can hold in their head, and that is why they are still assigned and still argued over.
The collection runs from windfalls that never arrive, through debts that do, to the comedy of ordinary people who cannot walk into a bank without panicking. Each title links to a page where the story is summarised and its ending explained.
The stories
The Million Pound Bank Note by Mark Twain. Two London brothers settle a bet by handing a penniless American a note too large to spend and turning him loose for a month. Henry Adams eats first and reads the letter after; from then on every shopkeeper extends him credit.
The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant. Mathilde Loisel borrows a diamond necklace for a ministry ball and loses it on the way home, and she and her husband spend ten years repaying the replacement. The ending turns on a chance meeting in the Champs-Elysees.
The Lottery Ticket by Anton Chekhov. Ivan Dmitritch checks the paper for his wife's ticket and finds the series matches, then delays reading the number so they can enjoy imagining the money. Within an hour each has decided the other would spend it badly.
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. Della has one dollar and eighty-seven cents for Jim's Christmas present, and she and Jim each own exactly one thing worth selling. What they buy each other is the whole story.
One Thousand Dollars by O. Henry. Young Gillian inherits a thousand dollars from his uncle on condition that he account for how he spends it. He gives it to the woman he loves and writes a false account. Then the lawyers open a second envelope.
The Rocking-Horse Winner by D. H. Lawrence. A boy in a house that whispers for more money discovers he can name winning racehorses by riding his nursery horse into a trance. His mother receives five thousand pounds on her birthday and asks for it all at once.
My Financial Career by Stephen Leacock. A nervous man tries to open an account with fifty-six dollars, is mistaken for a Rothschild's agent, and in his confusion withdraws the lot again. He keeps his savings in a sock after that.
The False Gems by Guy de Maupassant. Monsieur Lantin's adored wife loved the theatre and cheap jewellery, and after her death he is so poor he takes a paste necklace to be valued. The valuation changes what he thought his marriage was.
Mammon and the Archer by O. Henry. Old Anthony Rockwall, a soap millionaire, insists money can buy anything, including time; his son Richard has eight minutes in a cab to propose before the girl leaves for Europe. A traffic jam materialises at Broadway and Thirty-fourth.
The Model Millionaire by Oscar Wilde. Hughie Erskine, charming and broke, gives a sovereign to a ragged beggar sitting for his painter friend. The beggar turns out to be Baron Hausberg, and a wedding present follows.
Reading them together
The collection argues that money in fiction is never about the sum, it is about what the sum reveals. Chekhov's couple discover contempt before the number is even read. Maupassant twice makes a necklace expose a marriage, once through debt and once through inheritance. O. Henry and Twain run the opposite experiment: they give characters money, or the appearance of it, and watch generosity survive.
Set The Rocking-Horse Winner against The Gift of the Magi. In both a household is poor, and in both a child or a young wife pays for the adult's want; Lawrence lets the want win, O. Henry does not.
If you want to write about money
What writers can take from this
- Read The Necklace and The False Gems in one sitting; Maupassant wrote them a year apart and one is the other reversed.
- The Lottery Ticket takes ten minutes and teaches more about marriage than most novels.
- The Million Pound Bank Note is long for Twain; skim the society scenes, dwell on the tailor.
- In One Thousand Dollars, keep a note of every sum mentioned; O. Henry's ending depends on your having done so.
- Leacock is the palate-cleanser here, and a reminder that money stories can be funny.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a character receives a sum of money with one condition attached, and the condition, not the money, decides what kind of person they turn out to be.
Questions
What is the best short story about money?
The Necklace is the most taught and the most imitated. The Rocking-Horse Winner is the darkest, and The Million Pound Bank Note the most entertaining.
Which short stories about money are good for students?
The Necklace, The Gift of the Magi, The Lottery Ticket and My Financial Career are short and clear, and each ends with something worth arguing about. One Thousand Dollars is a good exercise in tracking detail.
Which classic story about money is the shortest?
My Financial Career, at under a thousand words. The Lottery Ticket and The Model Millionaire are each around two thousand.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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