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Short Stories

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The Past
Ellen Glasgow
39 min
http://The%20Past
USA
I had no sooner entered the house than I knew...
The Shadowy Third
Ellen Glasgow
39 min
http://The%20Shadowy%20Third
USA
When the call came I remember that I turned from...
A Millionaire’s Girl
Zelda Fitzgerald
18 min
http://A%20Millionaire’s%20Girl
USA
Twilights were wonderful just after the war. They hung above...
Princess Steel
W. E. B. Du Bois
19 min
http://Princess%20Steel
USA
“It is perfectly clear,” said my wife, pointing to the...

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

A Joke
Russia
IT was noon of a bright winter’s day. The air was crisp with frost, and Nadia, who was walking beside me, found her curls and the delicate down on her upper lip silvered with her own...
A Joke
Anton Chekhov
4 min
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
Nose Dwarf
Germany
This story is from the collection called “The Sheik of Alexandria and his Slaves,” and is supposed to be told by a slave to the Sheik.   Sir, those people are much mistaken who fancy that...
Nose Dwarf
Wilhelm Hauff
44 min
Through the Fire
UK
The Policeman rode through the Himalayan forest, under the moss-draped oaks, and his orderly trotted after him. ‘It’s an ugly business, Bhere Singh,’ said the Policeman. ‘Where are they?’ ‘It is a very ugly business,’ said...
Through the Fire
Rudyard Kipling
5 min
The Dead
Ireland
Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the...
The Dead
James Joyce
62 min
The Lady with the Dog
Russia
It was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at Yalta, and so was fairly at home...
The Lady with the Dog
Anton Chekhov
26 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 Steel Windpipe
Russia
So I was alone, surrounded by November gloom and whirling snow; the house was smothered in it and there was a moaning in the chimneys. I had spent all twenty-four years of my life in a...
The Steel Windpipe
Mikhail Bulgakov
8 min
The Remarkable Rocket
UK
The King’s son was going to be married, so there were general rejoicings. He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last she had arrived. She was a Russian Princess, and had driven...
The Remarkable Rocket
Oscar Wilde
17 min
The “Gloria Scott”
UK
“I have some papers here,” said my friend Sherlock Holmes, as we sat one winter’s night on either side of the fire, “which I really think, Watson, that it would be worth your while to glance...
The “Gloria Scott”
Arthur Conan Doyle
31 min

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