Classic Literature Short Stories

Fairytales are a universal part of childhood. No matter what time or what place you grew up, you have at one point or another heard that classic phrase “once upon a time.” They are usually the first stories we ever hear or read. These types of tales set us up to understand the art of stories and storytelling, and they are certainly worth revisiting. Here in The Blue Fairy Book, the first of Andrew Lang’s beloved collections of classic fairy stories, you will return to the tales you already know.

From the secret reels of a notoriously cursed cinematic masterpiece to the debauched livestreams of modern movie junkies who will do anything for clicks, Final Cuts brings together new and terrifying stories inspired by the many screens we can't peel our eyes away from. Inspired by the rich golden age of the film and television industries as well as the new media present, this new anthology reveals what evils hide behind the scenes and between the frames of our favorite medium.

"The Bet" is one of Chekov's most anthologized stories. A rich banker makes a bet with a poor artist that he cannot voluntarily stay imprisoned for a long period of time. The result of the bet is quite different than either man could have supposed.

Truman Capote makes whisky-soaked fruitcake in Alabama; Laurie Lee slides across a frozen pond in Gloucestershire; and Shirley Jackson is outwitted by a wily Santa Claus at the bank. Ghosts haunt the Christmases of Muriel Spark and Elizabeth Bowen, while Dostoyevsky, Daphne du Maurier and Italo Calvino take a cynical view of the season and Selma Lagerlof and Angela Carter celebrate its miracles. Ranging from Cork to Lagos to the Wild West, and from Paris to San Paolo to outer space, this is Christmas as imagined by some of the greatest short-story writers of all time.

A novel about the rich stories of small places, from the Nobel Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Books of Jacob and Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead A woman settles in a remote Polish village where she knows no one. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the...

The Dead is the final short story in the 1914 collection Dubliners by James Joyce. The other stories in the collection are shorter, whereas at 15,952 words, The Dead is almost long enough to be described as a novella. Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over 30 internationally best-selling biographies, including the London Sunday Times best seller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison.

Edna Pontellier has everything that a woman and mother should want - two wonderful sons, a husband, and good financial fortune. But still, she feels like something may be missing. While vacationing with her family, she meets a young man who shows affection and opens her mind to adventure and freedom.

From the author of such classics as Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle comes this collection of unabridged short fiction originally published in some of America's most popular magazines of the 1950s and 60s. Vonnegut himself selected his best early works for this collection, and he reads the preface and afterword to boot!

Here is the preface to 12 magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.

Men Without Women is Ernest Hemingway's second collection of short stories and his first publication since the blockbuster debut of The Sun Also Rises. Here, Hemingway revisits and explores several of his familiar genres and locales (including the bullfighting and boxing rings) and adds two stories involving his favorite protagonist, Nick Adams.

Here are 11 short stories and one novella by Anton Chekhov, one of the finest masters of what is acknowledged as a difficult genre. There is the richly comic "Oh! The Public" about a hassled ticket inspector, a wry look at morals and manners in "The Chorus Girl", and the melancholic tale of a cab driver in "Misery".

En El Príncipe Feliz, Oscar Wilde narra, de manera sumamente conmovedora, el primer y último intento de un príncipe por ayudar a su pueblo; para ello contará con la ayuda de una intrépida golondrina, y juntos, lo entregarán todo en nombre del amor. El sufrimiento de los hombres y de las mujeres es aún más sorprendente, no hay misterio tan grande como la miseria... Vuela sobre mi ciudad, pequeña golondrina, y dime qué ves allí.

Kurt Vonnegut made his mark as one of America’s most influential writers with novels such as Slaughterhouse Five, named one of the 100 best English-language novels by Time. Published posthumously, While Mortals Sleep is a collection of 16 short stories, written early in Vonnegut’s career, that further cements his status as an American literary icon.

This selection of Poe's critical writings, short fiction and poetry demonstrates his intense interest in aesthetic issues and the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. The Fall of the House of Usher is a slow-burning Gothic horror, describing the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past.

O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings. Includes: "By Courier", "Jimmie Hayes and Muriel", "School and Schools", "Roads of Destiny", "A Blackjack Bargainer"," A Cosmopolite in a Café", "Christmas by Injunction", "Mammon and the Archer", "A Bird of Bagdad", "After 20 Years", "From The Cabby’s Seat", "Lost on Dress Parade", "Memoirs of a Yellow Dog", "Tobin’s Palm", "Transients in Arcadia", "The Trimmed Lamp", and more.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on 29th January 1860 in Taganrog, on the south coast of Russia. His family life was difficult; his father was strict and overbearing, but his mother was a passionate story-teller, a subject Chekhov warmed to. As he later said; ‘our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother’. Chekhov wrote over 500 short stories which included many, many classics including ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Lady with a Dog’. His collection ‘At Dusk’ won him the coveted Pushkin Prize when was only 26.

Zehn meisterhafte Novellen weltbekannter Autoren in einer Hörbuch-Box! Inhalt: "Schachnovelle" (S. Zweig), "Das Erdbeben in Chile" (H. v. Kleist), "Pique Dame" (A. Puschkin), "Leutnant Gustl" (A. Schnitzler), "Der entwendete Brief" (E. A. Poe), "Ein Hungerkünstler" (F. Kafka), "Der Tod des Beamten" (A. Tschechow), "Der lustige Pfarrer von Azay-le-Rideau" (H. de Balzac), "Wieviel Erde braucht der Mensch?" (L. Tolstoi), "Der Leviathan" (J. Roth).

With the South Seas as a background for such stories as "The Pacific", "Mackintosh", "The Fall of Edward Barnard", "Red", "Rain", and "The Pool", we experience scenes of passionate love, tragedy, and violence - all described in Maugham's beautiful prose.

Stuart Reid is an Iron Master - a Dark Fae with a rare ability to make iron do his bidding. Exiled by the High Fae who fear him, he now lives in a simple house in Shiftertown outside Las Vegas, watching over Peigi, a bear Shifter woman, and the cubs she cares for. Peigi, rescued from an evil Shifter and welcomed into the Vegas Shiftertown, knows Reid and the cubs have helped her survive and heal. When Reid’s people send him a call for help, Peigi senses danger to him - too much of it. She finds she’ll do anything, even sacrifice herself and her happiness, to keep him safe.

This audiobook contains two awesome stories. The first story is about a wacky lion cub called Wilburr, and the second story is about a panicky penguin called Pettri.