This is a 1913 collection of ten short detective stories by a not well known writer. Jack Lanagan is a police reporter for a daily newspaper in San Francisco, who has the confidence of the chief of police and access to all sorts of levels of city life.
A collection of stories that inspired the works of many writers such as HP Lovecraft, "The King in Yellow" revolves around the play that the main characters read a part of, and those two acts of the play drive them all into madness.
Edgar Allan Poe has the ability to manipulate language so well that he could engage my imagination and get me terrified even though little was 'done' in the sense of horrible actions described. My imagination, under the power of his creepy words, conjured the atmosphere and did the rest by itself. In this recording I've chosen some of his stories that succeed so well in leaving lingering hair raising memories with me: The Telltale Heart; The Masque of the Red Death; The Black Cat; The Raven, the Casque of Amontillado and Berenice. I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I did reading them.
Guy de Maupassant was, and is to this day, one of the world's most celebrated short story writers. He famously tackled topics like the Franco-Prussian War and the disillusionment of life and relationships. This collection of his works, containing famous stories like "Boule de Suif" and "The Diamond Necklace" show off his lyrical and engaging style. The book is written in accessible language without being simple and is sure to delight a modern audience.
Thirteen short stories by the master. Summary by david wales
This is a collection of 4 stories by Leo Tolstoy, all dealing with the question asked in the title of the first story: What Does Man Live By. What is the purpose of life? How are we expected to live with others? What is all of this about anyway? And the answer to that question by the way is answered in a style that is uniquely and perfectly Tolstoy's. But these are not essays, but well written stories that tell about real people as they live real lives. The first story is broken into two parts and but is is read by the same person. Also the last story, How Much Land Does A Man Need has been broken into two sections for easier reading and it is also read by the same person for continuity and ease of understanding. The two stories in the middle, are much shorter but just as fascinating. Tolstoy was a deeply spiritual man and he always brought out the spiritual side of all the myriad questions he dealt with.
The Man With Two Left Feet, and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on March 8, 1917 by Methuen & Co., London, and in the United States in 1933 by A.L. Burt and Co., New York. All the stories had previously appeared in periodicals, usually the Strand in the UK and the Red Book magazine or the Saturday Evening Post in the US. It is a fairly miscellaneous collection — most of the stories concern relationships, sports and household pets, and do not feature any of Wodehouse's regular characters; one, however, "Extricating Young Gussie", is notable for the first appearance in print of two of Wodehouse's best-known characters, Jeeves and his master Bertie Wooster (although Bertie's surname isn't given and Jeeves's role is very small), and Bertie's fearsome Aunt Agatha.(Wikipedia)
This is a collection of short stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist and short story writer.
Washington Irving's name is synonymous with such classics as "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." He established himself as one of early America's most treasured writers. His wit and satirical voice are the hallmark of his writing. Irving had the extraordinary ability to paint a picture in words on the canvas of the printed page. Although an American, he spent a good deal of time traveling in England and memorializing his experiences in some of the essays chosen for this collection. With an emphasis on his time spent in London, the works include his observations on such diverse subjects as Westminster Abbey, British antiques and how one spends a Sunday in London. This collection brings to life the London of a bygone era as seen through the eyes of a keen writer and observer of life.
A collection of short stories by H. G. Wells, author of "The Time Machine" and "War of the Worlds". The science fiction master ranges over a variety of topics, each original and unexpected. Included in this collection is "The Country of the Blind" where a man with sight hopes to make himself king. In other stories a stranger offers to sell diamonds on the street, a magic door appears requires a sacrifice to go through it, a demon machine tries to become a god, an engineer finds an engineering solution to a love triangle, and a man dreams or does he?
This, the fourth of 5 volumes containing Poe's works, contains 22 of his short stories.
Warning: Section 7, "A Predicament," contains some racial stereotypes and a word describing the race of one of the characters that is unacceptable in today's society.
A collection of six short stories by American writer Herman Melville, published in May 1856. Except for the newly written title story, "The Piazza," all of the stories had appeared in Putnam's Monthly between 1853 and 1855. The collection includes what has long been regarded as three of Melville's most important achievements in the genre of short fiction, "Bartleby, the Scrivener", "Benito Cereno", and "The Encantadas", his sketches of the Galápagos Islands. (Billy Budd, arguably his greatest piece of short fiction, would remain unpublished in his lifetime.) One should note that the era's prevalent racism occasionally surfaces, as in describing blacks as "indisputable inferiors", to be found in "Benito Cereno".
This, the last of 5 volumes containing Poe's works, contains a collection of both prose and poetry.
In this first collection of stories following the characters from the "Anne of Green Gables" series, we see 12 vignettes into the lives of the other inhabitants of Avonlea. The case of Ludovic Speed as mentioned in "Anne of the Island" is finally detailed, along with another appearance by Anne Shirley herself in "The Courting of Prissy Strong". We meet some old friends and many new ones from "The Island", in stories both sweet and poignant. An old lady finds happiness in being a "fairy godmother" to a young music teacher; two lovers will not speak for fifteen years, but still love each other dearly; a woman-hater is quarantined with a man-hater; and other anecdotes of country town life are drawn by the delicate and sure hand of L.M. Montgomery.
Seven stories by Jack London, set in the Yukon and other northwestern localities. The most well-known story in this collection is probably To Build a Fire, which is often taught in American high school classrooms.
Thirteen short stories by HG Wells, the master of speculative fiction! Included in this collection is "Mr Skelmersdale in Fairyland" where a man finds his way into fairyland where a fairy queen tries to seduce him away from his human fiancée. In other stories a ghost gets stuck and can't get back to the "other side", a man decides to try being a god for a few months, a magic shop sells "the real thing", a scientist sells time in a bottle, a body is stolen (while its owner is still alive) and a man dreams or does he?
In the present [1908] collection those [stories] have been brought together which are concerned with the grotesque and with the terrible—such tales as might well be read “round the fire” upon a winter’s night. This would be my ideal atmosphere for such stories, if an author might choose his time and place as an artist does the light and hanging of his picture. However, if they have the good fortune to give pleasure to any one, at any time or place, their author will be very satisfied. Summary by Book Preface
These stories detail the lives of soldiers and civilians during the American Civil War. This is the 1909 edition. The 1909 edition omits six stories from the original 1891 edition; these six stories are added to this LibriVox recording (from an undated English edition). The 1891 edition is entitled In The Midst Of Life; Tales Of Soldiers And Civilians. The Wikipedia entry for the book uses the title Tales of Soldiers and Civilians.
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – after December 26, 1913) was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist. Today, he is best known for his short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and his satirical lexicon, The Devil's Dictionary. The sardonic view of human nature that informed his work – along with his vehemence as a critic, with his motto "nothing matters" – earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce." Despite his reputation as a searing critic, however, Bierce was known to encourage younger writers, including poet George Sterling and fiction writer W. C. Morrow. Bierce employed a distinctive style of writing, especially in his stories. This style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war, and impossible events. In 1913, Bierce traveled to Mexico to gain a first-hand perspective on that country's ongoing revolution. While traveling with rebel troops, the elderly writer disappeared without a trace. Since the book is a compilation of short stories, there is not an overarching plot. However, there are literary elements, or plot devices, that are shared throughout. Bierce's stories often begin mid-plot, with relevant details withheld until the end, where the dramatic resolution unfolds differently than expected, to a degree where most are considered twist endings. His characters were described by George Sterling as: "His heroes, or rather victims, are lonely men, passing to unpredictable dooms, and hearing, from inaccessible crypts of space, the voices of unseen malevolencies."... Bierce served as a union soldier during the Civil War and his experiences as a soldier served as an inspiration for his writing, particularly for the Soldiers section. In this way, Bierce's war treatments anticipate and parallel Ernest Hemingway's later arrival, whereas the civilian tales later influence horror writers.
L.M. Montgomery was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels that began with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Once published, Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following. The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels as well as 500 short stories and poems. Because many of the novels were set on Prince Edward Island in Canada, Canada and the Canadian province became literary landmarks.
An anthology of short, chilling stories from Algernon Blackwood. They will make you start at noises in the night and wonder about your neighbors. These stories likely stem from Blackwood's investigations into haunted houses for the Psychical Research Society and reflect his fascination with the weird, occult and supernatural.
These stories form the first volume of the renowned Tales of Hoffman. They are fantasies with hints of the supernatural—quintessential Romanticism. Writers of the Romantic period typically seek to lift the spirit to awe, wonder, love, horror, or other extremes of emotion. Hoffmann is drawn to such experiences, particularly as they relate to the creative process. Although he occasionally arouses them in the reader, he more often examines them critically or, in the case of hysterical excesses, especially infatuation, satirizes them.
Tales of Men and Ghosts was published as a collection in 1910, though the first eight of the stories had earlier appeared in Scribner's and the last two in the Century Magazine. Despite the title, the men outnumber the ghosts, since only "The Eyes" and "Afterward" actually call on the supernatural. In only two of the stories are women the central characters, though elsewhere they play important roles. Wharton enjoys subjecting her subjects -- all of them American gentlemen and gentlewomen, in the conventional senses of the word -- to various moral tests and sometimes ironic tests. Some of the stories deal with the intellectual fashions of the day -- "The Blond Beast" basing itself, to some degree, on Nietzsche, and "The Debt" on variants of Darwinism. Though "Afterward" is set in England, and "The Letters" in France, the rest of the stories are squarely in Wharton's own New York city, rather than (say) in what she calls "the soul-deadening ugliness of the Middle West," thus avoiding the need to come to terms with what fashion-conscious New Yorkers still today call "fly-over country" for everything that lies between the west bank of the Hudson River and San Francisco Bay.
A. A. MILNE:…was best known for the perennially popular Pooh (Winnie the), arguably one of his lesser contributions to the literature of his day. He was highly acclaimed for dozens of popular plays. Moreover, he was both a contributor to and editor of Britain’s famous Punch Magazine; and for Punch, The Atlantic Monthly and dozens of other internationally acclaimed journals he wrote hundreds of essay, sketches and poems.
THE WORLD WARS:Milne argued aggressively against the many enemy atrocities characterizing both World Wars, and also fought in both. All four years of the Great War he spent primarily in the trenches, sustaining the greatest dangers of the new warfare at close range. His war experiences are forcibly captured in some of the poems in this collection and others.
INFLUENCE ON THE STYLE OF BRITISH HUMOR:His immense popularity doubtless helped influenced the very basis of British wit and humor: His gentle, often self-deprecatory but always kind style of humor lured readers and publishers away from the more ironic, cynical, and acerbic humorous works of recent decades.
This is a collection of the author's short stories and poems where she writes about the collective experience of African American women, and African Americans in general. But she is sharpest when she pushes back against the notion that women must accept and endure a subservient role to men.
The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories is the third book by Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin and others. It was first published in hardcover by George Allen & Sons in October, 1908, and has been reprinted a number of times since. Issued by the Modern Library in a combined edition with A Dreamer's Tales as A Dreamer's Tales and Other Stories in 1917.
The book is a series of short stories, some of them linked by Dunsany's invented pantheon of deities who dwell in Pegana, which were the focus of his earlier collections The Gods of Pegana and Time and the Gods. One of the stories, "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth," was afterwards (1910) published by itself as a separate book.
Tales of Unrest (1898) is the first collection of short stories by Joseph Conrad published in his lifetime.
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924), a Polish-born English novelist, was a master in the formats of long short story and novella, a form of story longer than conventional short story but shorter than a novel. Some of Conrad's most acclaimed works have been written in these formats, most notably Heart of Darkness (1899).
Tales of Unrest contains five stories; Karain: A Memory (written 1897; read by Jhiu), The Idiots (1896; read by Ann Boulais), An Outpost of Progress (1896; read by Kristine Bekere), The Return (1897; read by Raerity) and The Lagoon (1896; read by David Lazarus). Author's note read by Sibella Denton.
A brave Malay chieftain suffers from a surprising vulnerability. After giving birth to a series of unfortunate children, a farmer's wife is determined to bear no more. A spoonful of sugar brings a neophyte ivory trader to a moment of Nietzschean self-realisation. A pompous ass discovers that his wife has run off with another man. Secluded in an eerie lagoon, a Malay carries a guilty secret in his heart. "Tales of Unrest" was the first volume of short fiction Joseph Conrad published in his own lifetime. While some of these tales evoke the settings of Conrad's earliest novels, others clearly anticipate elements of Conrad's subsequent masterworks "Heart of Darkness" and "The Secret Agent".
The eight short stories that comprise South Sea Tales are powerful tales that vividly evoke the early 1900’s colonial South Pacific islands. Tales of hurricanes, missionaries, brotherhood and seafaring are intertwined with enslavement, savagery, and lawless trading to expose the often-barbarous history of the South Pacific islands. You will also gain unsparing insight into the life, culture and relations between natives and Westerners during this period. If you like nautical and sea adventures, if you are interested in the history of the South Pacific islands, and especially if you want to read gripping tales set in the exotic lands, then this book will be perfect for you. However, please be forewarned that it does contain racist content. (Warren Kati - compiled from several book reviews)
The collection of short stories - of which The Prussian Officer is one - was Lawrence’s first such book. A German officer and his orderly are the focus of the piece and, while socially the superior of his orderly, the officer demonstrates his is the distinctly baser character.
Stories and essays by Willa Cather
This 1918 book consists of five short stories or novelettes by Galsworthy. They are The First and Last (1914), A Stoic, The Apple Tree (1916), The Juryman, Indian Summer of a Forsyte (1918) This last became part of the trilogy The Forsyte Saga.
Five ghost stories, published in 1920, by the early twentieth century master of ghostery.
This is a collection of early Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short stories. It includes stories of mystery, comedy, shipwrecks and fantasy.
A public domain collection of Scottish Ghost tales by Elliott O'Donnell. 1911
This book, the fiend’s delight, was published in 1873, during the lifetime of author Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914, pseudonym Dod Grile.It is a collection of short stories which cover many subjects. Dependent upon the reader the stories may seem callous, entertaining or some of the stories even just weird. The author has been known to have a penchant for being macabre as some of his works have displayed. Ambrose Bierce served in the Civil War so he did have personal experience with having seen just how horrid some lives were. He also had a family: a wife whom he divorced in 1904 and 3 children, 2 sons and a daughter. Difficult times followed for him as the sons died before Ambrose died, with his ex wife dying 1 year after their divorce. Ambrose himself was known to have had lifelong asthma & brain injuries from the war which caused him to faint & become irritable. His daughter did live 65 years, dying in 1940. She spent time searching for her father, whom she did not think was dead. Possibly his family is why some of his writings were not so macabre? Unfortunately that answer is not known.Leaving to visit his civil war grounds had him traveling into Mexico were there was revolution in 1913. There he joined Pancho Villa’s army as an observer where he disappeared. Many theories existed as to how his disappearance happened, most of which were unreliable. It was determined his final fate was unknown & referred to as a mystery.April Reynolds
A collection of short stories written originally in Yiddish and later translated into English. These stories were published under censorship in Russia from 1875 to 1900 provide an illuminating portrayal of the harsh life conditions for Russian Jews. Summary by Elsie Selwyn
Aldous Huxley is best known as a philosopher and novelist – notably as the author of Brave New World. He also wrote poetry, short stories and critical essays. Most of his work is somewhat dark and mildly sardonic, partly because he came of age just after World War I, when all of Europe was in a state of cultural, political and social confusion. His novel, Crome Yellow, is a prime example.
Mortal Coils includes four short stories and a play, including one of the author’s most famous short works: "The Gioconda Smile."
This is a volume of short stories by the famous Arthur Conan Doyle.
Here are four delightful short stories written by the famous author specifically for girls. As she says in the tiny preface "These stories were written for my own amusement during a period of enforced seclusion. The flowers which were my solace and pleasure suggested titles for the tales and gave an interest to the work. If my girls find a little beauty or sunshine in these common blossoms, their old friend will not have made her Garland in vain.L.M. ALCOTT." The stories are An Ivy Spray & Ladies Slippers; Pansies; Water-Lilies and Mountain-Laurel & Maiden-Hair. They are all between 40 minutes and 55 minutes finished audio so they are not short but all four are typical stories from the talented pen of Miss Alcott.
This is a collection of short stories focusing on the problems that present themselves to physicians and surgeons in the course of their work. The volume is named "Round the Red Lamp" as a reference to the red lamps that marked general practitioner's offices in Arthur Conan Doyle's times.
Kai Lung’s Golden Hours is a frame story or frame novel, that is, the narrative provides a frame for different stories. Think One Thousand And One Nights or Canterbury Tales. Kai Lung is an ancient Chinese storyteller who tells stories to postpone his criminal conviction in the court of a Mandarin. (david wales)
Seven short stories, written around the middle of London's writing career. The stories take place in diverse settings and time periods, from prehistoric times to the future. Plots include a worldwide work strike, a sociopath serial killer, a sailor returning home after years at sea, and more.
Written by Baroness Orczy and first published in 1919, The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel is a sequel book to the classic adventure tale, The Scarlet Pimpernel. The book consists of eleven short stories about Sir Percy Blakeney's exploits in rescuing various aristos and French citizens from the clutches of the guillotine. The stories which are listed below, are set in 1793 but appear in no particular order. They occasionally refer to events in other books in the series.
Onions wrote several collections of ghost stories, of which the best known is Widdershins (1911). It includes the novella The Beckoning Fair One, widely regarded as one of the best in the genre of horror fiction, especially psychological horror. On the surface, this is a conventional haunted house story: an unsuccessful writer moves into rooms in an otherwise empty house, in the hope that isolation will help his failing creativity. His sensitivity and imagination are enhanced by his seclusion, but his art, his only friend and his sanity are all destroyed in the process. The story can be read as narrating the gradual possession of the protagonist by a mysterious and possessive feminine spirit, or as a realistic description of a psychotic outbreak culminating in catatonia and murder, told from the sufferer's point of view. The precise description of the slow disintegration of the protagonist's mind is terrifying in either case.
Another theme, shared with others of Onions' stories, is a connection between creativity and insanity; in this view, the artist is in danger of withdrawing from the world altogether and losing himself in his creation. (Introduction from Wikipedia)
The Last Book of Wonder, originally published as Tales of Wonder, is the tenth book and sixth original short story collection of Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin and others.
The first edition, in hardcover, was published in London by Elkin Mathews in October 1916 as Tales of Wonder, followed by a Boston hardcover publication in November 1916, by John W. Luce & Co.. The title of the American edition, The Last Book of Wonder, was Dunsany's own preferred title. The British and American editions also differ in that they arrange the material slightly differently.
May Sinclair’s Uncanny Stories is a collection of short stories filled with macabre, romantic, and Gothic themes. Enjoy tales of love and loss, murder, philosophy, and supernatural happenings
Ten short stories on various themes and subjects, all more or less bizarre.
The Night-Born is about a woman who draws inspiration to change her life from an article she chanced to read.
In The Benefit of the Doubt, a crooked judge gets a lesson in justice.
When The World Was Young is the story of Primitive Man and Civilized Man sharing the same body.
And so on. Each story is unique and thought-provoking.
Ellis Parker Butler was an American author. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays. These are eight of his humorous short stories about life.
"Sometimes short stories are brought together like parcels in a basket. Sometimes they grow together like blossoms on a bush. Then, of course, they really belong to one another, because they have the same life in them. ...There is such a thought in this book. It is the idea of the search for inward happiness, which all men who are really alive are following, along what various paths, and with what different fortunes! Glimpses of this idea, traces of this search, I thought that I could see in certain tales that were in my mind,—tales of times old and new, of lands near and far away. So I tried to tell them, as best as I could, hoping that other men, being also seekers, might find some meaning in them"
"No less wonderful and varied are the inhabitants and the phenomena of the Philippines, and a new author, showing rare knowledge of the country and its strange peoples, now gives us a collection of simple yet wonderful stories which bring them before us with dramatic vividness... Strangest, perhaps, of all these possibilities for fiction is the 'anting-anting', at once a mysterious power to protect its possessor and the outward symbol of the protection..."