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Short Stories

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Talma Gordon
Pauline E. Hopkins
24 min
http://Talma%20Gordon
USA
The Canterbury Club of Boston was holding its regular monthly...
A Carnival Jangle
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
4 min
http://A%20Carnival%20Jangle
USA
There is a merry jangle of bells in the air,...
Violets
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
2 min
http://Violets
USA
I. “And she tied a bunch of violets with a...
Little Miss Sophie
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
9 min
http://Little%20Miss%20Sophie
USA
When Miss Sophie knew consciousness again, the long, faint, swelling...

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Hidden Gems

The Pit
Peru
“You really ought to see it before you go,” said Wordsworth. “It’s not something to be missed. That is, of course, if you dare …” Wordsworth tended to get a little peevish in the early hours...
The Pit
Santiago Roncagliolo
4 min
Sleepy
Russia
Night. Varka, the little nurse, a girl of thirteen, is rocking the cradle in which the baby is lying, and humming hardly audibly: “Hush-a-bye, my baby wee, While I sing a song for thee.” A little...
Sleepy
Anton Chekhov
9 min
The Mark on the Wall
UK
Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall. In order to fix a date it is necessary to remember what one...
The Mark on the Wall
Virginia Woolf
12 min
You're Laughing
Italy
Shaken by his wife with an angry tug on the arm, jolted out of his sleep again that night, was poor Mister Anselmo. “You’re laughing!” Dazed, and with his nose still stuffy from sleep, and wheezing...
You're Laughing
Luigi Pirandello
9 min
Esme
UK
“All hunting stories are the same,” said Clovis; “just as all Turf stories are the same, and all–” “My hunting story isn’t a bit like any you’ve ever heard,” said the Baroness. “It happened quite a...
Esme
Saki
6 min
The Blizzard
Russia
 Now, just like a beast, it’s howling, Now it cries, just like a child. The whole story began, according to the omniscient Aksinya, with Palchikov the clerk, who lived in Shalometyevo, falling in love with the...
The Blizzard
Mikhail Bulgakov
20 min
My First Goose
Russia
Savitsky, the commander of the Sixth Division, rose when he saw me, and I was taken aback by the beauty of his gigantic body. He rose — his breeches purple, his crimson cap cocked to the...
My First Goose
Isaac Babel
5 min
Kate Chopin
While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze, was blowing through the window
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,—the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction
Tillie Olsen
Oh it is a handsome place, green lawns and tall trees and fluted flower beds. High up on the balconies of each cottage the children stand, the girls in their red bows and white dresses, the boys in white suits and giant red ties. The parents stand below shrieking up to be heard and the children shriek down to be heard, and between them the invisible wall “Not To Be Contaminated by Parental Germs or Physical Affection.”
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Dissolve one teaspoon of the quadraturin essence in one cup of water. Wet a piece of cotton wool or simply a clean rag with the solution; apply this to those of the room’s internal walls designated for proliferspansion. This mixture leaves no stains, will not damage wallpaper, and even contributes—incidentally—to the extermination of bedbugs

Our Classics

The Magic Shop
USA
I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once or twice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the...
The Magic Shop
H. G. Wells
15 min
After the Dance
Russia
“— And you say that a man cannot, of himself, understand what is good and evil; that it is all environment, that the environment swamps the man. But I believe it is all chance. Take my...
After the Dance
Leo Tolstoy
11 min
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
Russia
A Fantastic Story   Chapter I I am a ridiculous person. Now they call me a madman. That would be a promotion if it were not that I remain as ridiculous in their eyes as before....
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
34 min
Over the Hills and Far Away
UK
Margaret Mahuntleth, in the corner of the big settle, basked in the hearth-glow like one newly come to heaven. Warm light reddened her knitted shawl, her white apron, and her face, worn and frail. It was...
Over the Hills and Far Away
Mary Webb
5 min
Philomel Cottage
UK
“Good-bye, darling.” “Good-bye, sweetheart.” Alix Martin stood leaning over the small rustic gate, watching the retreating figure of her husband, as he walked down the road in the direction of the village. Presently he turned a...
Philomel Cottage
Agatha Christie
31 min
Bernice Bobs Her Hair
After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of the golf-course and see the country-club windows as a yellow expanse over a very black and wavy ocean. The waves of this ocean,...
Bernice Bobs Her Hair
F. Scott Fitzgerald
35 min
The Sandman
Germany
NATHANIEL TO LOTHAIRE. Certainly you must all be uneasy that I have not written for so long—so very long. My mother, I am sure, is angry, and Clara will believe that I am passing my time...
The Sandman
E.T.A. Hoffmann
69 min
A Mighty Nice Man
USA
The child Charlotte sat on the narrow curbstone, her cheek against one knee, drawing idly in the dust with a stick. She sniffed at the flesh of her leg, smelt the dust and the sweat on...
A Mighty Nice Man
Patricia Highsmith
8 min
A Pair of Silk Stockings
USA
Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old porte-monnaie...
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Kate Chopin
5 min
Two Collectors
UK
The delight of his youth had become the burden of his old age. Forty years ago Wormald desired nothing better than to spend a whole day in book-hunting. Regardless of fatigue and of shoe-leather, he tramped...
Two Collectors
George Gissing
5 min

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