The Last Leaf

"The Last Leaf" is a short story by O. Henry published in 1907 in his collection The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories.

The story is set in Greenwich Village. It tells the story of an old artist who saves the life of a young artist, dying of pneumonia, by giving her the will to live. She can see a tree through the window gradually losing its leaves, and has taken it into her head that she will die when the last leaf falls. Seemingly, it never does fall, and she survives. We learn that in reality the tree lost all its leaves. What what she thought she saw was a leaf, painted on the wall with perfect realism, by the old artist. The old artist dies of pneumonia contracted while being out in the wet and cold, painting the last leaf.

Adaptations

"The Last Leaf" has been adapted frequently on film and stage.^[1] Notable film adaptations include

• The 1917 two-reel silent film The Last Leaf, one of a series of O. Henry works produced by Broadway Star Features.^[2]
• In 1952 it was one of five stories adapted for O. Henry's Full House. In this adaptation, the protagonist's nickname is Jo, and Susan (Sue) is portrayed as a sister, not a friend.^[3]
• In 1983 a second screen adaptation was done as a 24-minute film produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.^[4] This adaptation is the same as the 1952 film version from O. Henry's Full House.
• The 2013 Hindi film Lootera is based on "The Last Leaf".^[5]

References

External links

English Wikisource has original text related to this article: The Last Leaf

• The Last Leaf public domain audiobook at LibriVox