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Short Stories

5 min
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15 min

Friday the 13th

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Rain
William Somerset Maugham
60 min
http://Rain UK
It was nearly bed-time and when they awoke next morning...
Sigmund Freud Slept Here
Orna Reuven
14 min
http://Sigmund%20Freud%20Slept%20Here Israel
It was difficult to explain the true nature of her...
The Taipan
William Somerset Maugham
12 min
http://The%20Taipan UK
No one knew better than he that he was an...
Hills Like White Elephants
Ernest Hemingway
5 min
http://Hills%20Like%20White%20Elephants USA
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long...

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Hidden Gems

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
No News, or What Killed the Dog? USA
It was a day of holocausts, cataclysms, tornadoes, earthquakes, blackouts, mass murders, eruptions, and miscellaneous dooms, at the peak of which the sun swallowed the earth and the stars vanished. But to put it simply, the...
No News, or What Killed the Dog?
Ray Bradbury
9 min
The Cold Romania
For the first few hours they drove silently. His father simply sat there without saying a word, just sniffling from time to time. It seemed to him that he was doing it ostentatiously. He could see...
The Cold
Augustin Cupsa
8 min
The Queen of Spades Russia
At the house of Naroumov, a cavalry officer, the long winter night had been passed in gambling. At five in the morning breakfast was served to the weary players. The winners ate with relish; the losers,...
The Queen of Spades
Alexander Sergeievitch Pushkin
14 min
The Model Millionaire UK
A Note of Admiration   Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical...
The Model Millionaire
Oscar Wilde
7 min
The Green Door USA
Suppose you should be walking down Broadway after dinner, with ten minutes allotted to the consummation of your cigar while you are choosing between a diverting tragedy and something serious in the way of vaudeville. Suddenly...
The Green Door
O. Henry
10 min
The Decameron: Day the Fifth, The Ninth Story Italy
FEDERIGO DEGLI ALBERIGHI LOVETH AND IS NOT LOVED. HE WASTETH HIS SUBSTANCE IN PRODIGAL HOSPITALITY TILL THERE IS LEFT HIM BUT ONE SOLE FALCON, WHICH, HAVING NOUGHT ELSE, HE GIVETH HIS MISTRESS TO EAT, ON HER...
The Decameron: Day the Fifth, The Ninth Story
Giovanni Boccaccio
10 min
Lucia Berlin
Rich people in cars never look at people on the street, at all. Poor ones always do… in fact it sometimes seems they’re just driving around, looking at people on the street. I’ve done that
Sylvain Tesson
She met Alain one night at the end of March, when Moscow is just starting to warm up. The stalactites drop from the roofs and, on occasion, spear a passerby
Alice Bialsky
When the rock-n-roll phase of my life began, one of the most important goals I set for myself was to fashion an image. Image determined everything. A black leather jacket, tight black jeans, combat boots, hair that said, “we have just been bombed–I tried to escape and used my head as the brakes” and dark sunglasses worn year-round were mandatory items for any self-respecting rocker
Ernest Hemingway
After he no longer meant what he said, his lies were more successful with women than when he had told them the truth. It was not so much that he lied as that there was no truth to tell

Our Classics

The Little Match Girl Denmark
Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening – the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded,...
The Little Match Girl
Hans Christian Andersen
4 min
Before the Law Czech Republic
Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment....
Before the Law
Franz Kafka
2 min
The Model Millionaire UK
A Note of Admiration   Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical...
The Model Millionaire
Oscar Wilde
7 min
The Real Thing UK
When the porter’s wife (she used to answer the house-bell), announced “A gentleman—with a lady, sir,” I had, as I often had in those days, for the wish was father to the thought, an immediate vision...
The Real Thing
Henry James
42 min
Hills Like White Elephants USA
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against...
Hills Like White Elephants
Ernest Hemingway
5 min
Hands USA
Upon the half decayed veranda of a small frame house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg, Ohio, a fat little old man walked nervously up and down. Across a...
Hands
Sherwood Anderson
9 min
The City Russia
It was an immense city in which they lived: Petrov, clerk in a commercial bank, and he, the other,—name unknown. They used to meet once a year, at Easter, when they both went to pay a...
The City
Leonid Andreyev
11 min
The Deer in the Dream China
A man was gathering fuel in the Cheng State when he fell in with a deer that had been startled from its usual haunts. He gave chase, and succeeded in killing it. He was overjoyed at...
The Deer in the Dream
Lieh Tzu
2 min
The Blue Cross UK
Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no...
The Blue Cross
G.K. Chesterton
29 min
Haircut USA
I got another barber that comes over from Carterville and helps me out Saturdays, but the rest of the time I can get along all right alone. You can see for yourself that this ain’t no...
Haircut
Ring Lardner
19 min

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