Our Collection
Our Collection

Read & Listen
to 1,708
Curated
Short Stories

5 min
10 min
15 min

Remembering in June: Kafka & Henry James💀🪳

What’s new?

Solid Objects
Virginia Woolf
9 min
http://Solid%20Objects
UK
The only thing that moved upon the vast semicircle of...
The Most Dangerous Game
Richard Connell
32 min
http://The%20Most%20Dangerous%20Game
USA
“Off there to the right—somewhere—is a large island,” said Whitney....
An Unwritten Novel
Virginia Woolf
17 min
http://An%20Unwritten%20Novel
UK
Such an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to...
The School Days of an Indian Girl
Zitkala-Ša
24 min
http://The%20School%20Days%20of%20an%20Indian%20Girl
USA
I. THE LAND OF RED APPLES. There were eight in...

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Countries Background
Syria 5
Spain 30
Israel 111
USA 200
Mexico 20
Egypt 5
Poland 7

Hidden Gems

The Daughters of the Late Colonel
New Zealand
The week after was one off the busiest weeks of their lives. Even when they went to bed it was only their bodies that lay down and rested; their minds went on, thinking things out, talking...
The Daughters of the Late Colonel
Katherine Mansfield
28 min
Gym Period
Germany
The military school of St. Severin. The gymnasium. The class in their white cotton shirts stand in two rows under the big gas lights. The gym teacher, a young officer with a hard, swarthy face and...
Gym Period
Rainer Maria Rilke
7 min
Fragment of a Novel
UK
“In the year 17__, having for some time determined on a journey through countries not hitherto much frequented by travellers, I set out, accompanied by a friend, whom I shall designate by the name of Augustus...
Fragment of a Novel
Lord Byron
7 min
The Signal-Man
UK
“Halloa! Below there!”   When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would have...
The Signal-Man
Charles Dickens
20 min
El Verdugo
France
To Martinez de la Rosa.   The clock of the little town of Menda had just struck midnight. At that moment a young French officer, leaning on the parapet of a long terrace which bordered the...
El Verdugo
Honoré de Balzac
11 min
There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
UK
This, you know, is the beginning of the story about sprites and goblins which Mamilius, the best child in Shakespeare, was telling to his mother the queen, and the court ladies, when the king came in...
There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
M.R. James
5 min
Bohemia
Russia
I – How to Survive with the Aid of Literature. Astride a Play to Tiflis.   If someone asked me what I deserve, I would say in all honesty before God that I deserve hard labor....
Bohemia
Mikhail Bulgakov
9 min
D.H. Lawrence
There were some twiggy apple trees, winter-crack trees, and ragged cabbages. Beside the path hung dishevelled pink chrysanthemums, like pink cloths hung on bushes. A woman came stooping out of the felt-covered fowl-house, half-way down the garden
Anna Starobinets
And the name of the investor who had recently undertaken to fund the magazine, and who had actually commissioned this very article, accidentally migrated from a list of oligarchs who meticulously paid their taxes into a list of inveterate tax-dodgers
Sabrina Huang
This felt like that fairy tale, the shoemaker and the elves—he wondered if something was coming in the middle of the night and only leaving at dawn, working day after day on his sleeping body, filling in and carving out, turning him into a lean-torsoed, clean-featured hunk of a man
Anton Chekhov
It was cold and the snow was still on the ground, the trees were lifeless, but the scent of spring was in the air, and the rooks were cawing noisily as they settled themselves for the night

Our Classics

The Decapitated Chicken
Uruguay
All day long the four idiot sons of the couple Mazzini-Ferraz sat on a bench in the patio. Their tongues protruded from between their lips; their eyes were dull; their mouths hung open as they turned...
The Decapitated Chicken
Horacio Quiroga
10 min
Little Black Fish
Iran
It was the longest night of winter. At the bottom of the sea, an old fish gathered together 12,000 of her children and grandchildren and began to tell them this story: Once upon a time a...
Little Black Fish
Samad Behrangi
22 min
Corporal Billygoat and I
Poland
“Squad, stand easy… and fall out!” crowed Corporal Billygoat, in a voice that betrayed it had only broken lately. And at once, off duty now, he slapped Dragon on the back and said: “Hey, brother, go...
Corporal Billygoat and I
Tadeusz Konwicki
19 min
Emily from New Moon - Chapter 4
Canada
A Family Conclave EMILY wakened at daylight the next morning. Through her low, uncurtained window the splendour of the sunrise was coming in, and one faint, white star was still lingering in the crystal-green sky over...
Emily from New Moon - Chapter 4
Lucy Maud Montgomery
13 min
The Golden Honeymoon
USA
Mother says that when I start talking I never know when to stop. But I tell her the only time I get a chance is when she ain’t around, so I have to make the most...
The Golden Honeymoon
Ring Lardner
26 min
Miracle of the Horses
Russia
(A true story) Since she was beautiful and foolish —and she became more foolish when she was beautiful and more beautiful when she was foolish — and since he loved her, and since he had nothing...
Miracle of the Horses
Marina Tsvetayeva
7 min
The Force of Blood
Spain
One night, after a sultry summer’s day, an old hidalgo of Toledo walked out to take the air by the river’s side, along with his wife, his little boy, his daughter aged sixteen, and a female...
The Force of Blood
Miguel de Cervantes
20 min
There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
UK
This, you know, is the beginning of the story about sprites and goblins which Mamilius, the best child in Shakespeare, was telling to his mother the queen, and the court ladies, when the king came in...
There Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard
M.R. James
5 min
Blowing Up Trains
UK
{ Excerpts from Seven Pillars of Wisdom }   By November, 1917, Allenby was ready to open a general attack against the Turks along his whole front. The Arabs should have done the same in their...
Blowing Up Trains
D.H. Lawrence
15 min
The Monkey's Paw
UK
Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about...
The Monkey's Paw
W.W. Jacobs
15 min

Get the Full Story!

Subscribe and enjoy unlimited access to the library. Listen to audio editions and playlists.
Support writers, translators and editors.

Get Full Access
Skip to content