Classic Mystery Short Stories

Sherlock Holmes takes an interest in the case of a British Foreign Office employee who has had an important naval treaty stolen from his office. "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. It is one of the longest stories in the Sherlock Holmes collections.

The Screaming Skull is one of F. Marion Crawford's Uncanny Tales, which was first published, posthumously, in London in 1911 and was issued two weeks later in America as Wandering Ghosts.

Edgar Allan Poe, American poet and master of the horror tale, is also credited by many with inventing the American mystery story. "The Gold Bug" is one of his most famous stories. It was first published in the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper in June 1843, after Poe had won a competition held by the paper and received a prize of $100.

Unexplained events are happening at Oxford these days. Several students have been attacked at night by some strange form of wild animal. It can scale walls with cat-like agility. Its arms are as thin and as strong as steel bands. And there is one student who conducts midnight studies in his room with certain Egyptian artifacts. The most significant of which is a 6'7" tall mummy.

A phantom haunts The Pole-Star, a whaling ship stranded in the north Atlantic ice, as the ship's captain slips into madness....

Phil Chenevert narrates this classic Edgar Allan Poe tale of mystery and suspense.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe published in Graham's Magazine in 1841. It has been claimed as the first detective story; Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".

Esta selección de cuentos del excepcional Edgar Allan Poe incluye sus más destacados cuentos, Carta robada y Corazón delator, que lo llevarán a experimentar el suspenso y el misterio exponiendo hasta dónde un ser humano puede hundirse en el odio irracional. En Carta robada se narra la historia de una carta que se ha perdido y que en caso de caer en malas manos, puede perjudicar a su dueño. La policía sabe quién la tiene pero no dónde la ha escondido. Ante la incapacidad por resolver este misterio, el prefecto decide contratar a el detective Auguste Dupin, conocido por poseer una gran inteligencia y capacidad de deducción.

Die Kriminalgeschichten dieser Folge enthält nur eine (große) Erzählung. Der Einblick in den Alltag und ins Innenleben des Protagonisten "R." ist intensiv und detailreich. Die schiefe Bahn ist bereitgelegt und wird auch prompt genutzt. Meißner kommentiert: "R. scheint mir ein merkwürdiges Beispiel zu seyn, wie unsäglich schnell der Weg des Lasters bergabwärts geht; oder vielmehr: welche, im hohen Grade böse, That selbst derjenige begehen, - wisentlich begehen kann, der immer noch nichts weniger als ein eigentlicher Bösewicht ist."

Dies sind keine ausgedachten Abenteuer oder Novellen. Dies ist alles tatsächlich so geschehen. Hier sind Menschen wie du und ich. Und das ist ein großer Vorteil. Aus Gerichtsakten destilliert, mit Sinn und Kenntnis bearbeitet und in gutes schönes Deutsch gebracht. Diese Geschichten waren Instrumente der Aufklärung. Erstmalig in der deutschen Literaturgeschichte werden die sozialen Umstände von Tätern und Opfern diskutiert. Jene Helden der Ermittlung gab es damals (spätes 18. Jahrhundert) noch nicht. Keine Kommissar-Duos, keine Sheriffs. Nur Gerichte und ihre Diener.

"In der ganzen Geschichte des Menschen ist kein Kapitel unterrichtender für Herz und Geist als die Annalen seiner Verirrungen." Das ist der erste Satz aus Friedrich Schillers Erzählung Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre, die gemeinhin als erster deutscher Krimi gilt. Er selbst aber schreibt, er habe darin das Meiste August Gottlieb Meißner zu verdanken.

August Gottlieb Meißner hat Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts Kriminalfälle gesammelt und aus ihnen kurze packende Erzählungen gemacht. Es wurden die ersten deutschsprachigen Krimis. Er nannte sie "Skizzen" und wusste worüber er schrieb, denn er war Jurist, so wie sein später Nachfolger Ferdinand von Schirach. Hier folgen sechs weitere Fälle.

August Gottlieb Meißner hat Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts Kriminalfälle gesammelt und aus ihnen kurze packende Erzählungen gemacht. Es wurden die ersten deutschsprachigen Krimis. Er nannte sie "Skizzen" und wusste worüber er schrieb, denn er war Jurist, so wie sein später Nachfolger Ferdinand von Schirach.

Francis Marion Crawford, an only child, was born on 2nd August 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. He was a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". Crawford was educated at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and then on to Cambridge University, the University of Heidelberg and the University of Rome. In 1879, he went to India, to study Sanskrit and then to edit The Indian Herald. In 1881, he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University.

"We must all hang together," Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said to his revolutionary peers, "or we will assuredly all hang separately." This is a sentiment that's even more appropriate, and more urgent, when you're lost between the stars in a crippled and out-of-control ship, your...

Poe's famous detective story which is credited with inspiring an entire genre. The first case of the celebrated private detective, Dupin. When two women are found murdered in the most gruesome and mysterious circumstances in their apartment in the Rue Morgue, the Parisian police are baffled. Not only is one of the corpses stuffed feet first up a chimney in a room locked from the inside, but the other is hideously mutilated and lying in the yard outside.

An original and entertaining selection of crime stories all committed on the railways. Authors include Baroness Orczy (most famous for The Scarlet Pimpernel) and Maurice Leblanc (most famous for Arsene Lupin.)

Jane screeched at this further betrayal and went for Henry. They began to struggle. Henry was the stronger out of the two, yet the woman's pain was unstoppable. His hands wrapped around her throat and Jane clawed at his face until she fell. She lay there, across the tracks, and was quite still. Mrs. Cavell gasped in shock and Henry ran past us back to the train. We stared down at Jane's body.

I Kreutzersonaten berättar en medelålders man, efter att han har blivit frikänd för mord, om sitt äktenskapliga helvete, som slutat i ett svartsjukemord på hustrun. Under berättelsens gång får man följa hans tankar kring sexuell frihet, celibat, kärlek och samliv under äktenskapet.

Travel with Holmes and Watson to solve five mysteries from around the world. Narrated by the award winner and television celebrity, Alex Hyde-White. Story One: Not so Merry in Good Ol' Scotland. I awoke groggily, the surroundings looking dim. My vision was blurry, and I wondered where I was. I tried to move my arms and legs, but they felt as heavy as lead. Holmes? My voice rang out through the dark room, until a light was shone in my face.