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The Goophered Grapevine
Charles W. Chesnutt
22 min
http://The%20Goophered%20Grapevine
USA
Some years ago my wife was in poor health, and...
Mars Jeems's Nightmare
Charles W. Chesnutt
25 min
http://Mars%20Jeems's%20Nightmare
USA
We found old Julius very useful when we moved to...
The Passing of Grandison
Charles W. Chesnutt
26 min
http://The%20Passing%20of%20Grandison
USA
I When it is said that it was done to...
The Wife of His Youth
Charles W. Chesnutt
18 min
http://The%20Wife%20of%20His%20Youth
USA
I Mr. Ryder was going to give a ball. There...

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Short Stories from around the world  |

Hidden Gems

On the Tram
Czech Republic
I stand on the end platform of the tram and am completely unsure of my footing in this world, in this town, in my family. Not even casually could I indicate any claims that I might...
On the Tram
Franz Kafka
1 min
The Death of a Bachelor
Austria
Someone had knocked at the door, quite gently, but the doctor awoke at once, turned on the light, and sat up in bed. He glanced at his wife who was sleeping quietly, picked up his dressing-gown,...
The Death of a Bachelor
Arthur Schnitzler
17 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 Red Crown
Russia
Most of all I hate the sun, loud human voices, and pounding. Rapid, rapid pounding. I am so afraid of people that if I hear someone else’s footsteps and the sound of voices in the corridor...
The Red Crown
Mikhail Bulgakov
8 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
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
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
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 Grand Inquisitor
Russia
“Quite impossible, as you see, to start without an introduction,” laughed Ivan. “Well, then, I mean to place the event described in the poem in the sixteenth century, an age—as you must have been told at...
The Grand Inquisitor
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
25 min
The Fisherman and His Soul
UK
Every evening the young Fisherman went out upon the sea, and threw his nets into the water.      When the wind blew from the land he caught nothing, or but little at best, for it was...
The Fisherman and His Soul
Oscar Wilde
55 min
Two Collectors
UK
The delight of his youth had become the burden of his old age. Forty years ago Wormald desired nothing better than to spend a whole day in book-hunting. Regardless of fatigue and of shoe-leather, he tramped...
Two Collectors
George Gissing
5 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
Violets
I. “And she tied a bunch of violets with a tress of her pretty brown hair.” She sat in the yellow glow of the lamplight softly humming these words. It was Easter evening, and the newly...
Violets
Alice Dunbar-Nelson
2 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
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
The Green Devil
Russia
I could think of nothing else all month: Would they let me go to the Christmas party, or not? I was cunning. I prepared the ground. I told my mother about the glorious achievements of Zhenya Ryazanova,...
The Green Devil
Teffi
6 min
Rain
UK
It was nearly bed-time and when they awoke next morning land would be in sight. Dr. Macphail lit his pipe and, leaning over the rail, searched the heavens for the Southern Cross. After two years at...
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

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