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Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
USA
That very singular man old Dr. Heidegger once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded gentlemen—Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne—and a withered gentlewoman whose name was the...
Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment
Nathaniel Hawthorne
14 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
The Blue Hotel
USA
The Palace Hotel at Fort Romper was painted a light blue, a shade that is on the legs of a kind of heron, causing the bird to declare its position against any background. The Palace Hotel,...
The Blue Hotel
Stephen Crane
42 min
The Border-Line
UK
Katherine Farquhar was a handsome woman of forty, no longer slim, but attractive in her soft, full, feminine way. The French porters ran round her, getting a voluptuous pleasure from merely carrying her bags. And she...
The Border-Line
D.H. Lawrence
36 min
Dracula’s Guest
Ireland
Dracula’s Guest was excised from the original Dracula manuscript by its publisher because of the length of the original book. It was published as a short story in 1914, two years after Stoker’s death.   ***...
Dracula’s Guest
Bram Stoker 
13 min
The Door in the Wall
USA
One confidential evening, not three months ago, Lionel Wallace told me this story of the Door in the Wall. And at the time I thought that so far as he was concerned it was a true...
The Door in the Wall
H. G. Wells
27 min
The Open Window
UK
“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.” Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which...
The Open Window
Saki
4 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
The Garden Party
New Zealand
And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud. Only the blue was veiled...
The Garden Party
Katherine Mansfield
21 min
The Gentle Lena
USA
Lena was patient, gentle, sweet and german. She had been a servant for four years and had liked it very well. Lena had been brought from Germany to Bridgepoint by a cousin and had been in...
The Gentle Lena
Gertrude Stein
54 min
To Build a Fire
USA
Day had broken cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little-travelled trail led eastward through the fat...
To Build a Fire
Jack London
28 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 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 Legend of Sleepy Hollow
USA
Found among the Papers of the Late Diedrich Knickerbocker.   A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever...
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving
48 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
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
Eveline
Ireland
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired. Few people passed. The...
Eveline
James Joyce
7 min
The Feather Pillow
Uruguay
Alicia’s entire honeymoon gave her hot and cold shivers. A blonde, angelic, and timid young girl, the childish fancies she had dreamed about being a bride had been chilled by her husband’s rough character. She loved...
The Feather Pillow
Horacio Quiroga
5 min
Impoverished
Russia
  I When the waste and dreariness of her life become too much for Zivia, the younger and more embittered of the two unmarried Pozis sisters, she stops eating and washing. Wearing only her shift and...
Impoverished
David Bergelson
11 min
Upturned Face
USA
“What will we do now?” said the adjutant, troubled and excited.   “Bury him,” said Timothy Lean. The two officers looked down close to their toes where lay the body of their comrade. The face was...
Upturned Face
Stephen Crane
5 min
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
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
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
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 Tell-Tale Heart
USA
True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I...
The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allan Poe
8 min
August
Poland
In July, my father left to take the waters; he left me with my mother and older brother at the mercy of the summer days, white from the heat and stunning. Stupefied by the light, we...
August
Bruno Schulz
10 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
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
The Carriage
Russia
The Death-Bed Notes of a Fool   My life is coming to an end. Soon Death will tap its boney finger on my door… soon! Suffering has so withered my chest that no maiden’s kisses can...
The Carriage
Nikolay Nekrasov
9 min
Nora, daughter of Marcus Beag
Ireland
You never saw such surprise as that of the people of Ros Dha Loch when they heard that Nora, daughter of Marcus Beag, was to go to England. A sister of hers was already over there,...
Nora, daughter of Marcus Beag
Pádraic Ó Conaire
18 min
Condensed Milk
Russia
Envy, like all our feelings, had been dulled and weakened by hunger. We lacked the strength to experience emotions, to seek easier work, to walk, to ask, to beg… We envied only our acquaintances, the ones...
Condensed Milk
Varlam Shalamov
6 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
Araby
Ireland
North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers’ School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its...
Araby
James Joyce
6 min
The Invisible Man
UK
In the cool blue twilight of two steep streets in Camden Town, the shop at the corner, a confectioner’s, glowed like the butt of a cigar. One should rather say, perhaps, like the butt of a...
The Invisible Man
G.K. Chesterton
25 min
The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love
Japan
According to Ashin’s “Essentials of Salvation,” the Ten Pleasures are but a drop in the ocean when compared to the joys of the Pure Land. In that Land the earth is made of emerald and the...
The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love
Yukio Mishima
24 min
Husband and Wife
Scotland
The trader accustomed to the manners of Eastern Polynesia has a lesson to learn among the Gilberts. The ridi is but a spare attire; as late as thirty years back the women went naked until marriage;...
Husband and Wife
Robert Louis Stevenson
10 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
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
The Story of an Hour
USA
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. It was her sister Josephine who told her,...
The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin
4 min
The Son
Uruguay
It’s a rough summer morning in Misiones, with all the sun, heat and tranquility that the season can provide. Mother Nature, open to the skies, seems proud of herself. Like the sun, the heat, and the...
The Son
Horacio Quiroga
6 min
Roussillon’s heart
Italy
The Decameron: Day the Fourth, The Ninth Story SIR GUILLAUME DE ROUSSILLON GIVETH HIS WIFE TO EAT THE HEART OF SIR GUILLAUME DE GUARDESTAING BY HIM SLAIN AND LOVED OF HER, WHICH SHE AFTER COMING TO...
Roussillon’s heart
Giovanni Boccaccio
5 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
Eve’s Diary
USA
Translated from the Original   SATURDAY. – I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday. That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday...
Eve’s Diary
Mark Twain
12 min
How I Met the Author of My Obituary
Czech Republic
In the course of the five or six years I spent in Russia I was several times killed and liquidated by various organizations and individuals. When I returned home to Czechoslovakia I found I had been...
How I Met the Author of My Obituary
Jaroslav Hašek
4 min
The Emperor Franz Joseph’s Portrait
Czech Republic
In Mladá Boleslav there lived a stationer called Petiška. He was a man who respected the law and had lived, for longer than anyone could remember, across the road from the barracks. On the Emperor’s birthday...
The Emperor Franz Joseph’s Portrait
Jaroslav Hašek
6 min
The Prophetic Pictures
USA
“But this painter!” cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. “He not only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather and gives lectures in...
The Prophetic Pictures
Nathaniel Hawthorne
20 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
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 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 Diamond Necklace
France
The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of...
The Diamond Necklace
Guy de Maupassant
11 min
The Spirit of Madame de Genlis (A Spiritualistic Occurrence)
Russia
“It is sometimes much easier to call up a spirit than to get rid of it.” – A. B. CALMET   I The strange adventure I intend to tell took place several years ago, and can now...
The Spirit of Madame de Genlis (A Spiritualistic Occurrence)
Nikolai Leskov
17 min
The Picture Horse
China
A certain Mr. Ts’ui, of Lin-ch’ing, was too poor to keep his garden walls in repair, and used often to find a strange horse lying down on the grass inside. It was a black horse marked...
The Picture Horse
Pu Sung-ling
2 min
The Fall of the House of Usher
USA
“Son coeur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il rèsonne.” – De Béranger.   During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung...
The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
28 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
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