European Fiction

In this Lithuanian folktale, the king wants to know why the sun is red! He sends his horseman on a quest to find a house made of amber, inside which the answer lies. Follow along with him on his adventure!

In December 1944, Hitler launched a desperate massive counterstrike at the Allies, with thirty-eight German divisions slamming through American lines. Then the 101st Airborne was thrown into the fight. Fresh from seventy-two brutal days of combat in Holland, with little food and ammunition, the...

A pine tree is unhappy with its needles and wishes for different types of leaves instead. A fairy grants the tree its wishes, but the results are disappointing.

A fierce and merciless demon has been unleashed on the world, spreading destruction and bloodshed in both the human and the elven realms. Northlander Jarl Mandred witnesses the ruthless attack on his men, and he seeks vengeance with the help of the elf queen, Emerelle.

In this “superb history” (The Wall Street Journal), award-winning author Candace Fleming tells the extraordinary true story of Russia’s last royal family—and transports readers back to a time when both a bloodline and an empire came tumbling down. “Has all the elements of a fictional...

Three tales from The Canterbury Tales, read in the original Middle English by Richard Bebb under the direction of Britain's foremost Chaucer scholar, Derek Brewer.

Mike Purcell is poor. He has no money for food or rent, but he does have a cow to sell. On his way to the fair to sell her, he meets a strange man who offers him an equally strange trade—his cow for an empty bottle, with the promise that the bottle will make him rich. What happens when Mike takes the bottle home to his family? Will their fortune turn around?

Robert MacLeod, chief of clan MacLeod, falls in love with a fairy princess named Finnoula. Unable to stay in the mortal world, Finnoula must make a choice between the life of a mortal and the life of the Shining Folk. Learn the legend about the fairy flag at Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye, owned by the MacLeods for nearly eight hundred years!

Many old Irish folktales tell about the deeds and adventures of Finn MacCool—a great hunter and warrior and the strongest giant in Ireland. As you will see from this story, even a famous giant needs a little help once in a while.

In this Swedish folktale, a young boy longs for all the nice things other children have. An old woman tells the boy a secret for granting his wishes: sprinkling salt on a magpie’s tail. But, before the magpie will grant the boy’s wish, the bird has some strange requests of his own.

In this Irish folktale, a young and powerful king has an embarrassing secret: he has horse’s ears! Then one day, the royal barber discovers this unusual trait. Can he keep the king’s long-held secret, or will the barber be banished from the kingdom for good?

Giovanni Boccaccio, Dante, and Petrarch were the leading lights in a century that is considered the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. The Decameron, or Ten Days' Entertainment, is his most famous work, a collection of stories considered representative of the Middle Ages, as well as a product of the Renaissance.

Gertrud and her foster sister, Hanna, used to be inseparable. But as the years pass, Hanna becomes the beautiful one while Gertrud remains plain. Their once unbreakable bond is strained by jealousy - until Gertrud is brutally murdered and Hanna disappears without a trace.

In the snowy Salzburg landscape, Miss Atalanta has another mystery to solve… ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 'One of my favourite detectives…it reminded me of some of the old Sherlock Holmes cases' November 1930 After accepting an invitation to attend the ballet in snowy Salzburg, Miss Atalanta Ashford is...

This full-cast dramatisation tells the true story of the French Resistance plot to destroy Nazi Germany's Atlantic Wall in Normandy. When France fell to the Germans in 1940, a slight, scholarly 28-year-old captain of engineers and professor escaped to England. In collaboration with General...

Nathanaël, je t'enseignerai la ferveur. Une existence pathétique, Nathanaël, plutôt que la tranquillité. Je ne souhaite pas d'autre repos que celui du sommeil de la mort. J'ai peur que tout désir, toute énergie que je n'aurais pas satisfaits durant ma vie, pour leur survie ne me tourmentent. J'espère, après avoir exprimé sur cette terre tout ce qui attendait en moi, satisfait, mourir complètement désespéré. Que mon livre t'enseigne à t'intéresser plus à toi qu'à lui-même, puis à tout le reste plus qu'à toi.

Décidément, les idées de Sophie tournent toujours à la catastrophe ! Avec ses frères, Léonce et Arthur, elle teint un mouton en noir, brûle les poils du chien Bijou, et manque de mettre le feu à sa robe... Même quand ses cousins se réunissent pour raconter des histoires, la fillette ne peut s'empêcher de leur jouer des tours ! Pourtant, Louis parvient à captiver la malicieuse Sophie en racontant que sa tante, une nuit, a trouvé un cadavre sous son lit...

Dans ce monde de la littérature contrôlée par la monarchie absolue du Roi soleil, La Bruyère est universel : n'étant nulle part, il est partout ; son insignifiance le rend disponible, parfaitement libre.

Parce que j'ai maintenant des petits enfants, j'ai souvent envie de raconter des histoires. C'est la fonction naturelle des grands-pères, et peut-être leur plus grand mérite.

A delightful anthology of great works by some of Europe's greatest short story writers....