English
0 min 70 min
Mortimer Gray’s History of Death
UK
I was an utterly unexceptional child of the twenty-ninth century, comprehensively engineered for emortality while I was still a more-or-less inchoate blastula and decanted from an artificial womb in Naburn Hatchery in the county of York...
Mortimer Gray’s History of Death
Brian Stableford
10 min
The Lover’s Tale as told to Kamila Shamsie
UK
John’s childhood ambition was to be a pilot. Let’s sit with that a while. A boy grew up, like so many other boys all over the world, watching the skies, imagining himself in the endless blue....
The Lover’s Tale as told to Kamila Shamsie
Kamila Shamsie
15 min
The Tree of Knowledge
UK
It was one of the secret opinions, such as we all have, of Peter Brench that his main success in life would have consisted in his never having committed himself about the work, as it was...
The Tree of Knowledge
Henry James
23 min
An Old-Fashioned Christmas
UK
  CHAPTER I–THE PROMISE   “An old-fashioned Christmas.–A lively family will accept a gentleman as paying guest to join them in spending an old-fashioned Christmas in the heart of the country.” That was the advertisement. It...
An Old-Fashioned Christmas
Richard Marsh
22 min
Glory
UK
When Glory’s parents christened her Glorybetogod Ngozi Akunyili, they did not foresee Facebook’s “real name” policy, nor the weeks she would spend populating forms and submitting copies of her bills and driver’s license and the certificate...
Glory
Lesley Nneka Arimah
20 min
The Lorry Driver’s Tale as told to Chris Cleave
UK
 we aRen’T aT all like you. They keep us apart, for your protection. There’ll be a blue sign at the entrance to any ferry port or motorway services: you take this lane and we’ll take that....
The Lorry Driver’s Tale as told to Chris Cleave
Chris Cleave
13 min
The White People
UK
Prologue ‘Sorcery and sanctity,’ said Ambrose, ‘these are the only realities. Each is an ecstasy, a withdrawal from the common life.’ Cotgrave listened, interested. He had been brought by a friend to this mouldering house in...
The White People
Arthur Machen
66 min
Second Skin
UK
The transport, once owned by an outer system cartel and appropriated by Earth’s Pacific Community after the Quiet War, ran in a continuous, ever-changing orbit between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. It never docked. It mined the...
Second Skin
Paul McAuley
36 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
Mr. Tallent’s Ghost
UK
The first time I ever met Mr. Tallent was in the late summer of 1906, in a small, lonely inn on the top of a mountain. For natives, rainy days in these places are not very...
Mr. Tallent’s Ghost
Mary Webb
17 min
Napoleon and the Spectre
UK
Well, as I was saying, the Emperor got into bed. “Chevalier,” says he to his valet, “let down those window-curtains, and shut the casement before you leave the room.” Chevalier did as he was told, and...
Napoleon and the Spectre
Charlotte Brontë
4 min
The Bowmen
UK
It was during the Retreat of the Eighty Thousand, and the authority of the Censorship is sufficient excuse for not being more explicit. But it was on the most awful day of that awful time, on...
The Bowmen
Arthur Machen
4 min
The Marble Child
UK
All over the pavement of the church spread the exaggerated cross-hatching of the old pews’ oak, a Smithfield market of intersecting lines such as children made with cards in the old days when kings and knaves...
The Marble Child
Edith Nesbit
14 min
The Invisible Girl
UK
This slender narrative has no pretensions to the regularity of a story, or the development of situations and feelings; it is but a slight sketch, delivered nearly as it was narrated to me by one of...
The Invisible Girl
Mary Shelley
22 min
The History of England
UK
BY A PARTIAL, PREJUDICED, AND IGNORANT HISTORIAN. To Miss Austen, eldest daughter of the Rev. George Austen, this work is inscribed with all due respect by THE AUTHOR. N.B. There will be very few Dates in...
The History of England
Jane Austen
14 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 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
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 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 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
Asylum
UK
Prison more like, said Madeleine.   Come now, said Mr Kramer. If I run away they bring me back, said Madeleine. Yes but, said Mr Kramer.   Mr Kramer often said, Yes but to Madeleine. Something...
Asylum
David Constantine
12 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 Book of Beasts
UK
He happened to be building a Palace when the news came, and he left all the bricks kicking about the floor for Nurse to clear up–but then the news was rather remarkable news. You see, there...
The Book of Beasts
Edith Nesbit
18 min
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