Short Classics

Charles Dickens started his literary career as a journalist reporting for ‘The Morning Chronicle,’ a profession which encouraged his observing eye. This collection of essays and short stories was first published in that journal and anticipates, and frequently demonstrates, the genius that was to come.

Dr. Heidegger invites four elderly friends to his macabre study. He claims to his friends to have found liquid from the fountain of youth! The friends are skeptical, but choose to drink the liquid anyway.

Lauren Groff presents nine stories of astonishing insight and variety, each revealing a resonant drama within the life of a 20th-century American woman. In some of these stories, enormous changes happen in an instant. In others, transformations occur across a lifetime---or several lifetimes. Throughout the collection, Groff displays particular and vivid preoccupations.

Young, impressionable Aubrey is fascinated by the enigmatic Lord Ruthven, and accompanies him on a tour to Europe. But Aubrey develops a growing distaste for Lord Ruthven’s sinister and grotesque conduct - especially as it concerns human blood. This novella, penned during that tempestuous night in Switzerland amongst such notables as Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and Mary Shelley, served as the great inspiration for Bram Stoker to create Dracula.

At the heart of each of these great classic stories is an adoptee with an indomitable spirit who becomes the heroine (or hero) of her own life. "The bravery it takes for an unwanted orphan to forge their own path in life was as great when these stories were written as it is today," says narrator Alison Larkin, who draws on her own adoption experience to bring these stories to authentic new life.

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.

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

Widely acclaimed as a progenitor of 20th-century Latin American fiction, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908), the son of a mulatto father and a washerwoman, was hailed in his lifetime as Brazil's greatest writer. His prodigious output of novels, plays, and stories rivaled contemporaries like Chekhov, Flaubert, and Maupassant, but, shockingly, he was barely translated into English until 1963, and still lacks proper recognition today.

The G.K. Chesterton Classics Collection brings together some of the most celebrated works of one of the 20th century's most influential writers, spanning his diverse contributions to detective fiction, theology, storytelling, and poetry. This richly illustrated edition includes key works such as The Innocence of Father Brown, featuring the iconic amateur detective whose sharp intellect and moral insight unravel complex mysteries; Orthodoxy, Chesterton's profound defense of Christian faith; and The Ballad of the White Horse, a lyrical epic about King Alfred the Great.

The recently rediscovered short story 'The Lost One', perfect for fans of Daphne du Maurier, Santa Montefiore and Anya Seton. First published in Woman's Journal in 1960, and set against the backdrop of unfenced country and dark winding valleys at night, the aptly named 'The Lost One' features The Wind off the Small Isles heroine Perdita West, who brings her characteristic pluck and courage to this classic Mary Stewart tale of suspense and intrigue....

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?

CONTENTS: Introduction; I Just Make Them Up, See; Someday; The Feeling of Power; Living Space; Satisfaction Guaranteed; The Last Question; Jokester; The Immortal Bard; Spell My Name With an "S"; The Ugly Little...

Enjoy the short stories of three of the greatest writers of French literature, for the first time assembled together in audiobook and narrated in a lively way. Guy de Maupassant was an absolute master of the short story genre, delighting in clever plotting, concise style, and efficient storytelling, which he used to produce stunning pieces in a very condensed format. He produced more than 300 short stories; we selected for you nine of the most bizarre, influent, humorous or plain shocking.

From one of the 20th century's greatest voices comes the complete volume of his short stories featuring Nick Adams, Ernest Hemingway's memorable character, as he grows from child to adolescent to soldier, veteran, writer, and parent—a sequence closely paralleling the events of Hemingway's life...

An incubus disguised as a high school girl puts a disturbing spin on the teacher/student fantasy. An engineer creates a robot with unexpected consequences during the end of the world. A man becomes the pet of alien invaders. From stories of aliens in other worlds to those living among us, these tales will move you out of your comfort zone and open you up to experiencing something - or someone - completely different.

Guy de Maupassant today remains among France's renowned short story masters. He excels at recounting the banal daily lives of Frenchmen, which yet reveal deep moral truths. The first of these three classic tales is Boule de Suif, which relates the desperate attempts of several French citizens intent on escaping the rule of invading Prussian forces. The coach heading for Havre is conveying people of varying classes—nobility, rich and merchant—to a woman of comfort, whose heart and dignity prove larger than any of her fellow passengers'.

Adventure, science fiction, aesop’s fables, classic fairy tales, and Christmas story books for children.

Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers introduces a remarkable new writer whose breathtaking stories are set in China and among Chinese Americans in the United States. In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and culture...

Listening to The Satires by Juvenal is to come face to face with the corruption, the debauchery, the waste, the sloth, and the mean-spirited greed of ancient Rome...or is it more like modern times? Indeed, these masterpieces of biting social commentary could easily have been written today about any number of metropolitan areas we are all familiar with.

Though best known for his classic novel of Edwardian childhood The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley was also a master of supernatural and macabre fiction, the best of which is collected in The Travelling Grave and Other Stories. This volume demonstrates Hartley's versatility, ranging from traditional ghost stories like "Feet Foremost" and "The Cotillon" to the wonderfully black humor of the horror masterpieces "The Travelling Grave" and "The Killing Bottle". Originally published in 1948 and long out of print, this collection features 12 of Hartley's best tales.