Short Classic Literature

Is the ‘perfect murder’ possible? Can that crime be committed with such consummate care, with such exacting skill, that it is unsolvable—even to the most astute investigator? In this unique collection, legendary crime writers Margery Allingham, Anthony Berkeley, Freeman Wills Crofts, Ronald Knox, Dorothy L. Sayers and Russell Thorndike each attempt to create the unsolvable murder, which Superintendent Cornish of the CID then attempts to unravel.

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!

This recording contains four of Katherine Mansfield's best stories. In The Daughters of the Late Colonel, two sisters are recently bereaved; while in Her First Ball a young girl attends her first dance. The Singing Lesson features Miss Meadows, a music teacher in turmoil; and in The Stranger, a middle-aged couple are reunited.

Author, poet, screenwriter, and outstanding member of the legendary Algonquin Round Table, Dorothy Parker was known for her quick wit, keen observations, and remarkable insight into the human condition. Regarded as brilliant, but known to be an alcoholic and often depressed, Parker’s work pushes all buttons at once: humor, anger, love, pity, and everything in between...she pulled no punches, writing with pure, unadulterated passion; her work is timeless and as pertinent to today’s society as it was to that of the time she wrote.

Spanning four decades in the mid-19th century, the interconnected novellas of Old New York lay out in vivid detail the complex and inscrutable codes, customs, and taboos of New York society in classic Wharton style.

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine, and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856.

For The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries, writer and anthologist Michael Sims did not summon the usual suspects. He sought the unfamiliar, the unjustly forgotten, and little-known gems by writers from outside the genre. This historical tour of one of our most popular literary categories includes stories never before reprinted, features rebellious early “lady detectives," and spotlights former stars of the crime field—Austrian novelist Auguste Groner and prolific American Geraldine Bonner among them.

Imagine you are hunting an enemy who happens to be your neighbor, and suppose that your neighbor is hunting you. What makes people who should be friends become fierce enemies? Who is the loser in this deadly fight? The answer may shock you.

A towering figure in the pantheon of twentieth-century literature, Thomas Mann has often been perceived as a dry and forbidding writer—"the starched collar," as Bertolt Brecht once called him. But in fact, his fiction is lively, humane, sometimes hilarious. In these fresh renderings of his best short work, award-winning translator Damion Searls casts new light on this underappreciated aspect of Mann's genius.

Ce livre audio issu de la célèbre émission de France Inter "Ça peut pas faire de mal" de Guillaume Gallienne fait la part belle au roman. Qu'il s'agisse de Marcel Proust et des extraits de la "Recherche du temps perdu", des "Misérables" de Victor Hugo ou bien de la "Princesse de Clèves" de Madame de Lafayette, retrouvez la lecture comme aux premiers émois, quand la voix propose une nouvelle intelligence du texte.

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".

An elderly couple living in Victorian London struggle against despair as their small resources dwindle. When an eccentric and mysterious gentleman answers their advertisement for a lodger, they celebrate. But as women begin dying at the hands of "The Avenger", they start to suspect something too horrific for words.

From a childish fear of the dark in "The End of the Party" to the chilling conclusion of the "Destructors" and the all-consuming selfishness of "May We Borrow Your Husband", this collection opens with three of Greene's most disturbing stories. Things take a surreal turn in "Under the Garden" before finally blossoming for a moment in "Two Gentle People", then there's a detective story and a brush with Greene's sardonic wit to finish.

Blacky the Crow is a mischief maker. He has very sharp eyes and sees things he shouldn't. They often get him into trouble. Blacky loves eggs. One day he discovers that Hooty the Owl and Mrs. Hooty have laid eggs in a nest when there is still snow on the ground. Blacky devises a plan with his fellow crows to steal them. Later, we find out that Blacky has a good side too. As with all Thornton W. Burgess books, there are positive messages for young listeners.

Award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith breathes life (albeit a wizened Texan version) into the old Greek myths. With her incurable Texas drawl, she spins the Greek myths as you've never heard them before, rendering them 99% more fun while retaining 100% of their original insights into the crooked ways of the human heart and the no less crooked ways of the ancient Greek gods.

What would you trade for the secret to unimaginable fortune? In Alexander Pushkin's The Queen of Spades, an ambitious young officer becomes entangled in a web of greed, mystery, and the supernatural, all centered around the fateful queen of spades. Set in the glittering salons and shadowy streets of St. Petersburg, this story unravels with a mix of elegance and unease. Pushkin's sharp storytelling brings to life characters who are as unpredictable as the hands they're dealt—where ambition collides with madness, and destiny plays its cruelest game.

My Man Jeeves is the first book in a series of comical ones by written by P.G. Wodehouse, which recount the tales of Wooster and his ever reliable valet Jeeves. The stories follow our hapless hero and his misadventures in New York where he and his friends always seem to be getting into trouble, only to be bailed out by the ingenious plots of his witty valet, Jeeves.

The earth's surface is no longer habitable. All humanity is sequestered beneath the ground, couched in isolation and contentment. The Machine provides the needs of humanity. Mankind becomes subservient drones to the life-supporting Machine. But what happens when the Machine stops?

A golden collection of gems from classic German literature, ranging from early Sturm und Drang, through Gothic horror, to some of the finest stories from later German Romanticism.

CSA Word continues its ever-popular series of classic short stories, featuring writers such as Jerome K. Jerome, Louisa May Alcott and Saki, read by such respected and revered readers as Derek Jacobi, Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.