# [].stories[].description
Edgar Allan Poe was the original champion of gothic horror and of the medium of the short story. He was the first author in America to fully support himself financially purely with his writing. Many of his works have survived, but the paramount story has always been his story of a deranged murderer and his insane plea to explain himself. The *Tell-Tale Heart* has incredible tension and a poetic ending.

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Despite Arthur Conan Doyle wanting to go down in history as the next Shakespeare or Poe, and to be known for his literary and gothic stories, his name has become inseparable from Sherlock Holmes. And as much as I would like to respect his wishes, his most famous story is undeniably the first short story of the man of deduction, and the introduction of the only woman to outsmart him.

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman gave us one of the hallmark pieces of early feminist literature, based on her own experiences with depression and childbirth. It is believed that her ability to put to pen the insufferable experience of being forcefully homebound caused the widespread abandonment of the medical procedure. *The Yellow Wallpaper* tells of a woman restrained to her house by her husband and sister-in-law and begins obsessing over the wallpaper.

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Ambrose Bierce Served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. But like many authors, he wrote afterwards not of victory or of hatred for the other side, but of the pain of war itself. In *An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge*, Bierce shows a simple humanity in the other side. It is devoid of what was fought for and what was done to fight for it, and leaves only the personal life and emotion of a soldier about to be executed. It is poetically written and exceedingly tragic.

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Like Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Lovecraft’s Cthulhu has had a longer-lasting renown than its author, having popped up in movies, T.V. videogames, books and tabletop games. The true horror of the monster, however, is best depicted in its original story, where Lovecraft did not merely make a good horror, but reinvented the genre and developed entirely new kinds of fear.

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When Richard Connell published *The Most Dangerous Game*, something about the story of a man being hunted by another man for sport struck a nerve in people. You may not have heard of the specific short story, but you have certainly seen works of art whose plot can be drawn back to the original Shipwreck Island. In *The Most Dangerous Game* is a classic gothic adventure of a man taking on both nature and man.

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Anton Chekhov is one of the kings of the short story, and the crown jewel of his works is the *Lady With the Dog*. It is considered a story so well-written that it never needed much of a plot. Of course, it was originally written in Russian, and one wonders (at least those of us who can’t read Russian) what could have been lost the translation of this story of two lovers running from their marriages.

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Dickens is just too famous to ignore. While he is known for his novels, *The Signal Man* gives a snippet of his famous, ghostly, gothic ethos. It is an eerie and evocative story of a rail signal man who has visions of ghosts trying to warn him of future accidents along the train tracks.

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*Lamb to the Slaughter* is by far the most modern short story on this list. It is written by Roald Dahl, the famously macabre yet sarcastic children’s author. He keeps the macabre here, but any childishness playfulness is gone, replaced with murder and horror. Nonetheless, this story has spread like wildfire for retaining Dahl’s typical absurd and dauntless style of writing.

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*Desiree’s Baby* hits you with two plot twists in a row, and this is undoubtedly one of the reasons it went down in history. The story is poetic and descriptive, but fast paced and quick to set up the twist and nail the reveal.

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*A Dream of Armageddon* is an epic adventure told through a series of dreams. H. G. Wells packs an entire odyssey into this 10,000 word story, one which is full of love and loss, paradise and war.
            A man on a train is approached by a stranger who is eager to talk about his dreams, he chronicles a romantic epic that unfolded to him over many nights of sleep.

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The classic Australian bush Poet, Banjo Paterson, provides us with a calling to the outback. *Clancy of the Overflow* is a harsh criticism of how dreary the rat race of city life could feel even in the 19th century.
            A simple city man wonders what a country friend of his is up to, and contemplates the difference between his life in an office and the life of his adventurous friend.

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A genius story about unwanted fame and one-hit-wonders from an author only famous for one story himself —*The Most Dangerous Game*. *The Man Who Could Imitate a Bee* is a hilarious tale with a lovable protagonist.
            A young scientist stoops to cheap comedy to gain the interest of a girl and her peers, but the attention quickly turns sour for the young man. 

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*The Dream of a Ridiculous Man* provides an answer for nihilism that entire philosophies fail to give. It tackles the misery of a suicidal man with a simple idea and the most beautiful depictions of humanity’s purpose put to pen.
            A man resolves to end his life that night, but a panicked girl on the street begging for help causes him to hesitate. That evening he has a revelatory dream of perfect world far, far away.

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Jack London is a master of writing struggle and suffering, but this story knocks his other adventures out of the park by moving from merely man vs wild to man vs man (or in this case, woman vs man).
            A woman is thrust out from a safe and predictable life in the city and into a crazy and wild life in the Canadian frontier. Soon, she finds herself with a murderer’s life in her hands, forced to decide between revenge and justice.

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Through sly comedy, Kuprin tackles a deep historical issue of violence in Russia.
            A charismatic leader of the ‘Association of Thieves’ turns up to the courts to defend their ‘profession’ after being accused of murder.

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Daphne Du Maurier provides a masterclass of tension based on an unexpected, but convincing new fear.
            A father must learn to protect his father when a new airborn menace threatens the country.

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A short fable on devotion by H. G. Wells with an ingenious twist meaning at the end.
            A prince who lost his beloved princess vows to spend the rest of his life building a monument of her image so glorious that people will come from far and wide just to see it’s beauty.

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Clark Ashton Smith gives us a mind-bending story that is a great introduction to the hyper-imagination of one of history’s most underrated fantasy authors.
            In the diary of a man disappearing from all records of his existence, he writes of the use of a drug to see into his past lives.

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Tom Godwin strikes at the heart of morality with a tale centered on a gripping moral dilemma.
            A man finds a stowaway in the worst possible solution and must decide between the lesser of two evils.

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*The Curious Case of Benjamin Button* is a story with a simple premise that reveals a perspective on human experience with a profoundly deep source of insight on the quirks of love, family, society and the stages of a man’s life.
            Roger Button is surprised to find his newborn baby enter the world as a full grown elderly man. Desperate to keep up appearances, he does his best to act as if nothing is abnormal about his son.

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In *The Black Cat*, Edgar Allan Poe masters the sense of paranoia one feels when pestered by something cloaked in the appearance of something innocent.
            A man suspects his wife’s adopted, black cat to be the source of all his almost paranormal bad luck.

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If a story is relayed by a pirate in a bar then you know it’s going to be worth your time. *A Vintage of Atlantis* is an evocative foray into temptation and restraint.
            A crew of buccaneers find a mysterious bottle on a beach, temptingly smelling like a wine from a different era, aged to perfection. But when they drink it they start to see strange visions in the sea.

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Another genius tale from Richard Connell, this one is more wacky than *The Man Who Could Imitate a Bee*, but has a touching ending to seal it off.
            A lonely wax museum worker has grown to make ‘friends’ of the other inhabitants. But when the museum is set to close down he must hatch a plan to rescue his favourite of them all from being melted down.

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Kuprin writes on the clash of a city man and a country man in *Black Fog*. It is another poignant critique of the rat race of society, but with a tragic ending where the fog of the big town wins.
            A rambunctious Ukrainian barges back into his old Petersburg friend’s life determined to ‘Conquer’ the city. But despite the country man’s strength of heart, even he soon finds himself coughing up the black fog.

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*Alone* is a pure and honest piece. Although published after his death, evidence surrounding the original manuscript suggests it was written by Poe when he was only twenty. Whenever he wrote it, he chose to keep it to himself and never publish the autobiographical verses.
            A man writes on the feeling of being different and alone since birth, and of the failure of worldly wonders to inspirit him as it does to others.

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An adventurous, heist thriller from the unknown C. C. Macapp. Despite never reaching much success as an author aside from a few publications in sci-fi magazines, *A Guest of Ganymede* is a fantastic setting for an adventure in space, terrifically executed in its pacing.
            Gil Murdoch has ferried his wealthy, blind client to a hidden, alien hospital where they will heal his eyes with their firmly-guarded, cure-all virus. But Gil isn’t satisfied with a simple payment, and has other plans for the priceless drug.

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*The Country of the Blind* starts off as a regular adventure, but over the course of the story it delves deeply into the philosophical consequences of its own plot. 
            A man  falls off a mountainside into a mysterious town that has lived isolated from the rest of the world for generations. The newcomer struggles to fit in with the locals, who are all very suspicious of the two sensitive objects stuck in the middle of his face, and at various points chase him around and threaten to pull them out of his head.

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Lovecraft explores the suffering of a man wishing to dream like he could as a child. It is a beautifully honest piece with unforgettable quotes and insights, and makes you wonder about the psyche of its author.
            Randolph Carter journeys to his ancestral home to rekindle the dreams of his youth, which have been replaced with the jaded reality of maturity.

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*The Double Shadow* is an energetic gothic fantasy, that shows you the villanous side of a fantasy world. The aesthetics of the characters and their abode is wonderfully evil, and their fatal adventure equally entertaining.
            Two necromancers live on a castle on a cliff. In their ambitions to discover all there is to know about the dark side of magic, they bite off more than they can chew.

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Lovecraft was a man scared of many things, often taking inspirations from his nightmares. But what could possible have been the inspiration for this story about the fear of cold air? *Cool Air* is written in the typical, fancy tongue of Lovecraft, but more creepy and mysterious than horrifying as his other stories usually are.
            A man finds himself lodging underneath a scientist that never leaves his room full of contraptions and chemicals, and kept to freezing temperatures all day long.

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*Invictus* is the literary embodiment of courage and resilience, and a cornerstone of British cultural pride, having been quoted by Churchill in his books and speeches. It is said that W. E. Henley wrote this poem to express his pride in having braved the amputation of his leg.
            A man celebrates his own ‘unconquerable soul’.

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*A Reputation* is a cleverly satirical criticism of our obsession with the spectacles of suffering and tragedy.
            Saunders Rook wants very badly to be as popular as the others of his club of liberal professionals, so he blurts out the first thing he can think of that will get him some attention: a plan to commit suicide. Unfortunately, he leaves himself with no choice but to stick by what he says. 

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A deep and thought-provoking story hidden under a layer of silliness. *Johnny Pye and the Fool-Killer* is a timeless masterpiece on human nature.
            A young boy’s parents call him a fool and warn him the fool-killer will get him someday. So the impressionable lad runs away and spends years trying to find an adult that can make a clever man out of him. Sadly though, he discovers time after time that the adult in the room is just as much a fool as he.

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Perhaps more relevant than ever, Kuprin writes of an unnamed expedition by the Russian Empire. And the immorality of imperialism and tyranny.
            After sentencing an old man to death, a captain is visited at night by the very same. The old man reveals himself to be a very peculiar figure from the past who comes with much judgement upon the captain.

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Although still filled with fear, this Lovecraft story is stripped of the typical terrifying monstrosities and psychic dread to reveal a purely gothic Lovecraft story.
            An undertaker grows lax in his care for the burial process. Then one day he accidentally locks himself in a vault with several yet-to-be buried coffins and learns to regret having ever disrespected the dead.

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Huxley perfectly captures our inability to nurture the spirit of the genuine within our fake lives.
            A man finds a quaint little bookshop on a busy street, and marvels at how it has survived the pressures of the commercial world around it.

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A collection of short stories on death and what comes after. Read or download. The Premature Burial by Edgar Allan Poe. The Last Leaf by O. Henry.

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“It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time.” * The Last Leaf

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A sketch of pair of broken glasses and an ink stain

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After mankind has almost entirely defeated disease, natural disasters, predation from the wild and hunger through medicine, shelter and agriculture we find ourselves victim to ourselves. Where suicide in many rural regions and past cultures was almost hard to even comprehend, in big cities it is almost commonplace. It is a tragic mystery that, as shown in this story, we might never understand.
In *A Story Without an End*, a man goes to his neighbour to find him bleeding out on the ground. They talk about the subject of suicide abstractly, avoiding the man’s personal reasons for his act.

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In the modern world where we have little respect for artefacts and ancient rituals, one of the few remaining sacred objects is the dead body. In the materialist perspective, once someone has passed on their body should hold no importance to us, and yet it would still insult nearly anyone to see a body placed into a plastic coffin or pulled out of a grave. 
*The Body Snatcher* investigates the immoral act of grave digging, and of desecrating a dead body for selfish profiteering. The theoretically victimless crime is nonetheless evidently a grave sin to most people, and one that brings the characters of this story their appropriate retribution.

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We have always feared death to varying degrees. We have feared the end of all our ambitions, of leaving behind our loved ones and of that mysterious and threatening place that we go to, whether that is somewhere beyond the Earthly world, or simply six feet under and surrounded by soil.
Edgar Allen Poe was notoriously obsessed with the fear of being buried alive: Taphophobia. He wrote several stories with this as a theme, the Magnus Opus being *The Premature Burial*.

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‘If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee,’ says Nietzsche. And many writers who spend too much time gazing into the abyss start bringing it into the world through their art. 
In *The Poets of the Tomb*, Lawson rages against such authors who desire to ‘vanish from the scene’, preferring himself to tell others of the work they have to do on Earth while they are there, of living, fighting and doing good. Leave the dead to concern themselves with death, he believes, and the living to concern themselves with life.

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There is little chance to avoid thinking about the end when it is near, and if you don’t find yourself on a battlefield then the place you are most likely to feel nearest is sick in bed. There are plenty of reasons to panic when ill, but strangely, most people become very quiet and even peaceful. 
*The Last Leaf* follows a woman who predicts that she will go when the last leaf outside her window falls. Her friend is confused by her lack of will to recover and does what she can to motivate her dying friend.

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A children’s fable teaches a perspective even a child can understand, but is this perspective simply one we must grow out of, or does it hold a truth that we suffer to forget.
The legendary Dickens writes of a boy who loses his sister at a young age, and must wait his whole life to reunite with her on the other side of the veil.

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The struggle between honesty and convenience.

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A collection of short stories on the consequence of lying. Read or download. Confessions of a humorist by O. Henry, The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain.

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“But you cannot kill truth.” * The Blood of the Martyrs

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A sketch of pair of broken glasses and an ink stain

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What is honesty if untested? Can we really know what we are willing to say before we are tempted with great opportunity to gain from deceit? A man can grow a naïve pride in his own integrity if he has had neither the pressure nor the temptation to twist his tongue in service of a lie.
*In The Corruption of Hadleyburg*, a town known for being full of honest men and women crumbles when the citizens wake up to letters promising them thousands of dollars on the condition that they betray their neighbours. It is an investigation into the hubris of those with good reputations of honesty that are yet to be proven.

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How important is a man’s word? What is he willing to do in order to follow through on his promises? Throughout history,  people have been willing to kill and die for their reputation. Whether it be through duels, ritual suicide or war, much violence has sprouted from simple words of honour.
*The Reputation* shows how desperate we are for the approval of our peers, and of how what our peers approve of isn’t always what is best for us. It follows are man who, in the spurn of the moment, makes a dramatic promise that lands him on the front cover of the news.

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What kind of strength does it take to speak truth to power when your life is on the line? What can motivate a man to make the ultimate sacrifice in the name of truth?  Is it the bravery that will put a soldier on the battlefield and a firefighter into a burning building? Or is it ambition, guilt, love or even something deeper than any emotion?
*The Blood of the Martyrs* gives us an unlikely hero, bespectacled and old. But one with as much heroic defiance as the swashbuckling prince or rogue.

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It is one thing to speak out against others, and another to stand up for them. When others pile on hatred, it is easy to slip into line and join the rabble. The slightest hesitation in these situations can create enemies as fast as open defiance. But sometimes a little voice in our head prevents us from joining in with the crowd.
*Anathema* shows a priest following the rite of anathema, a process of shunning those who have fallen afoul of the Orthodox church. But when the priest is told to denounce a man whom he admires, he hesitates.

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A collection of stories on psychic influence. Read or download. Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe and more.

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“She was the only one he could find with the right kind of brain and a weak enough will.” * The Thing on the Doorstep

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A sketch of an eye with a hand placing a ball inside

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The practice of hypnotism was all the rage in the 19th century, under the names of mesmerism and animal magnetism. Even more so than now, it blurred the line between medicine and occult practices, and drew equally passionate skepticism and belief.
A skeptical man’s wife volunteers to be mesmerised by a woman and acts unexpectedly the next day. The man volunteers next to clear things up.

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Our friends and our family can be captured so strongly by the influence of others that it can seem that we have lost them entirely. They may join an ideology or cult, or submit themselves entirely to an authoritative figure, so much so that they give up who they once were.
Daniel Upton’s close friend Edward Derby is intelligent, but closeted and naive. After Derby gets married to the daughter of a family rumoured to be involved in the occult, Upton witnesses strange changes in his friend.

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God’s gifts are not assigned equally, and some are much smarter, more fluent and more knowledgable than others. A strong personality can bulldoze a weaker one, and someone can find themselves acting on anothers interest, leading to frustration, bitterness and a desire for revenge.
                    A man finds himself under the power of an erudite and influential wife, and soon finds himself wishing to be free from her corrupting presence.

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Our minds are sanctuaries, and so are our brains. The effects of drugs and alcohol, of age and brain damage all threaten our sense of self control. But to become completely a slave to a foreign influence, for our brains to be captured entirely, is a fear that we hopefully never have to contend with.
An explorer's partner is oddly quiet and morose after returning from a three day expedition on which he has nothing to report, and as the journey goes on he becomes sicker and sicker until something mysterious appears growing out of the top of his head.

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We all have voices in our head, but not everyone can control theirs. Even a mostly sane man will sometimes tell himself, or perhaps hear, that he is less than he would like. Just like cruelty from someone else, these voices can torment and degrade us, with terrible consequences worse than broken bones.
Leonard Sale crash-lands on a planet. Fortunately, he has six days to spare before rescue, as well as plenty of food and water and a conveniently breathable atmosphere. But on his first attempt to fall asleep he begins to hear voices.

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Even our eyes can convince us of a foreign influence. Ghosts, monsters and demons as well as angels have prevailed throughout all cultures. But are these merely accidents caused by a stressed and troubled mind, abstractions of real troubles or real themselves?
A man writes in his diary of an affliction that keeps him in a permanent panic. He begins to worry it is an unseen, living entity trying to control him.

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A collection of classic European fairy tales. Read or download. Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinerella and more.

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“Fee-fi-fo-fum.” * Jack and the Beanstalk

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A collection of short stories on birds. Read or download. H. G. Wells, Daphne Du Maurier, Banjo Paterson and more.

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“Some had lost feathers in the fight; others had blood, his blood, upon their beaks.” * The Birds

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A pencil sketch of a wooden door with wooden bars, beaks, talons and eyes are peeking through.

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 New insects and fish are discovered every day, and new mammals are often just slightly larger or smaller versions of each other. But to discover a new bird is to discover a new spectrum of colour and style of dance, and perhaps a unique adaptation to a strange environment of snow, rain and dangerous predators. One strange adaptation is the large, flightless character seen in the emu, ostrich, cassowary and extinct moa. To discover another of these is the explorer’s dream.
In *Aepyornis Island*, a man recounts being sent to collect eggs at a swamp where he found himself stuck without a way back. And, after an egg started to crack he had to learn to make a new friend.

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They may not seem intimidating to most, but something about the persistent and chaotic nature of a bird attacks sends some people in to a frenzy. Their claws and beaks may not be made for us, but they are razor sharp and build to tear through skin. One can only imagine what birds could really be capable of if they turned against us.
*The Birds* is a classic horror story about a strange day in English cottage where nature turns against man. It is long and tense, and does the perfect job of convincing the reader that something so innocuous could become something so sinister.

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Many look to birds and are jealous of their freedom. Many desire to take flight and to see the world, unrestrained by human responsibilities. We all desire to ‘spread our wings’ at some point in our life. But even a bird’s life is restrained by hunger, migration and instinct, and perhaps nothing is truly completely free.
*Black Swans* is a poem on the march of time and the inevitability of what it brings to all of us.

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Ravens and crows have always been omens of dark tidings. They are scavengers, first of all, but they also have many other features that send a shiver down our spine. They have an eerie call and are jet-black in colour. Their eyes are emotionless, predatorial and often wide open. And worst of all they sit around just out of reach, as if either waiting for something deadly to happen or taunting us without us realising.
*The Raven* is a tragic story of a man driven to insanity by a single word. It is one of the most recognisable poems of all time and for good reason.

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A collection of short stories on humanity's exploration. Read or download. Jack London, Ray Bradbury, H. G. Wells and more.

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“Everything was as black as night outside, except where the beam from his light struck through the waters.” * In The Abyss

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A pencil sketch of Bathosphere shooting a beam of light.

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Was it merely the prospect of gold that drew westward the early American colonists? The rich had plenty of comfort staying in the East, or in England for that matter. And for the poor there was no guarantee of fortune, only of danger. One can not deny the call of adventure. That which called mankind to spread out of Africa and across the globe, that which called Abraham out of his tent, and that which calls us even today to set sail and leave our homeland. It may not be rational, it may not be self-preserving, but it is undeniably present when we think of the wild, wild chaos of unexplored territory.
The Night-Born centres on a woman who discovers that she cannot bear to live in her house while the call beckons her. What is scrubbing dishes and setting bread compared to hunting buffalo and wresting canoes from the wind? After the call becomes to much, she runs from her home and sets out without a plan, and soon finds herself meeting the danger and her destiny. 

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Is there still a vestige of mystery within our blue planet we can dream of uncovering? Perhaps some, for if even with all of our submarines and sonar we are yet to capture sight of a fully grown colossal squid, what else could lay hidden in our deepest trenches? The opacity of the ocean grants us but a small opportunity to take naïve, charming guesses into what may remain unknown in nature.
*In the Abyss* follows an eccentric explorers attempt to plunge into unseen oceanic depths. And fortunately for him, his efforts are rewarded with the magnificence of discovery. 

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Humanity assumed in advance the next several steps forward for quite some time. Neil Armstrong’s giant leap was dreamed of for hundreds of years before coming to fruition in *From Earth to the Moon* (Jules Verne, 1865), *The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall* (Edgar Allan Poe, 1835), *The Man in the Moone* (1638) etc. Of course, a journey to Mars has always been as clear a next leap as a second rung on a ladder. But with the journey mapped out so clearly one might begin to hesitate at where it is all leading.
As mankind prepares a trip to the moon, one man worries that mankind’s ever-growing dominion and control of technology will lead to war and tragedy as it always seems to. And in the end, William Stanley of *Rocket Summer* chooses to plant his heels in the ground in resistance to the idea of further exploration. But he finds himself alone in his desires and must contend with the public’s fervour in taking the next step.

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Is there anything to be appreciated in the exploration of virtual worlds. While we are called forth to explore our boundaries on Earth, is there anything to find in screens and headphones, or is it but a narcissistic temptation to cover one’s eyes to reality.
A man meets the inventor Melbourne who shows him a machine capable of surrounding him in a virtual world indistinguishable to the senses from reality. Soon he finds himself lost in the world, and never wants to leave.

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A collection of short stories on music. Read or download. Clark Ashton Smith, Aldous Huxley, Aleksandr I. Kuprin and H. P. Lovecraft.

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“But only the blackness of space illimitable; unimagined space alive with motion and music, and having no semblance to anything on earth.” * The Music of Erich Zann

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Music draws us in without us knowing why. It motivates us, relaxes us, inspires us and saddens us based on rules that few of us can master and none of us fully understand. Clark Ashton Smith threads these concepts through his eerie story and reminds us of their power.
In *The City of the Singing Flame*, Phillip Hastane reads the diary of an author who has disappeared off the face of the Earth. The journal describes the author accidentally discovering an alien land in which a mysterious music in the air draws him to towards a giant column of flame.

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Perhaps the only thing worse than a life devoid of the enchanting mysteries such as music is the horror of seeing it debased and co-opted for some lowly purpose. Be it artists strong-armed into turning their talents towards propaganda, beautiful architecture torn down to build parking lots, or music played for a quick profit. 
*The Bookshop* presents a little store as a vestige of literature and music in a flat and unappreciative modern world, but worn down by the outside even this glimpse is strangled into submission and forced to sell itself out for a few coins.

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Like a lethargic lion in a zoo, music loses its majesty when chained down and is best seen out in the wild. The same song found to be invigorating at a mysterious bar or when played by a strange man on the street may feel colourless when played on demand by a machine at your house.
*The Old City of Marseilles* depicts the experiences of music and revelry hidden away in a city that only someone with patience and luck can find, while a rich man with all the power in the world cannot. An old man, for example, picks up a guitar in a tavern and lights up the room with a single song, only to disappear nameless thereafter.

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The mysterious power of music is unknown and unlimited. Perhaps it is above being deconstructed by physics and biology forever. We may ask: why do we participate in it, what is it for? But whether we will ever know the answers or not, now is the time to take advantage of its strange potential.
*The Music of Erich Zann* imagines the forces of music as a truly fantastical power. Capable of being a rare weapon against even eldritch monsters. In the story, a students hears a man playing music in the attic above his room, and after investigation learns of a paranormal war taking place in which the neighbour’s violin is a vital instrument.

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A collection of short stories on the pursuit of happiness. Read or download. The Nightingale by Hans Christian Anderson, A House in the Country by Richard Connell.

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“Oh, how beautiful is the nightingale’s song!” * The Nightingale

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A pencil sketch of a nightingale singing, with wispy lines emanating from its mouth

# [].stories[].description
Like a butterfly, it runs away and hides when we chase after it, but settles on our shoulder when we are looking the other way. It lives in a place off the map and with no coordinates and no directions, and we only find ourselves there for brief spurts of time by accident. 
Banjo Paterson introduces us to the paradox of happiness through a quaint poem written in the rhyming pattern popularised by Poe’s famous poem *The Raven*. In the poem a man finds a mysterious town known only as *Come-by-Chance* and wonders how he could find this place where he would finally be free of life’s hustles and worries. But of course, it’s not a place one can get to by walking.

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So, what do we busy ourselves with while we sit around and wait for happiness to ‘come by’, why bother doing anything at all? Career and family ambitions; holidays, clothes, and cars; a beautiful house in the country; do they serve a purpose in the end of all things or are they nothing but a distraction?
Richard Connell investigates these *distractions* that are our life goals and what purposes they serve to our sanity and wellbeing. In *A House in the Country*, the eccentric Hosmer Appleby spends his every waking hour seemingly planning for his future retirement in a country house. His friend can’t seem to understand why Appleby feels the need to plan so far ahead, and never runs out of energy despite his inability to live in the moment.

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And yet, despite all this talk about the difficulty of finding happiness, are there not things that bring us happiness at the snap of our fingers? Need it be so hard, need we wait, when there are pleasures all around us for low, low prices?
*The Nightingale*, written in 1843, is so timeless it could be mistaken for an on-the-nose criticism of mobile phones, social media and other modern addictions. An emperor, who enjoys listening to a nightingale from the woods, is gifted a wind-up nightingale that can sing thirty times in a row without a break. With no need of the real bird, it flies away, and the emperor doesn’t even notice until one day the clockwork replacement breaks from overuse.

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But sometimes happiness never seems to show its face no matter how long we wait. Sometimes the sun stays below the horizon for so long we begin to doubt it’s even there at all. And what’s worse is in these times suffering never disappears as easily. 
Dostoevsky, in an almost magic trick of genius, justifies living with suffering alone. In *The Dream of a Ridiculous Man*, a man plans on committing suicide, but after a street girl begs for someone to help her sick mother, he finds himself unable to go through with it. During a fantastical dream, he discovers a new sense of purpose in his life and the courage to wrestle with suffering itself.

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A collection of short stories on living a second life. Read or download. Celephaïs by H. P. Lovecraft, The Planet of the Dead by Clark Ashton Smith, A Dream of Armageddon by H. G. Wells.

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“Overhead in the sky something flashed and burst, and all about us I heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas suddenly thrown.” * A Dream of Armageddon

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A pencil sketch of a sillhouetted man and woman kissing as biplanes shoot at them from the horizon over the sea.

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The narrator comes to a town and discovers that a man named Mr. Skelmersdale has a notorious tale about being taken away by fairies. He tries to befriend Skelmersdale and fish out this story but the man is hesitant, having been mocked by others for its preposterousness. Eventually, Skelmersdale opens up, telling of a strange experience he had in a ring of mushrooms out in the forest.
*Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland* examines the fantasy of the perfect woman, and the consequences of falling in love with her.

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Lionel Wallace discovered the *Door* when he was five years old. Inside was a paradisal garden filled with beautiful sites, animals, and people. But throughout the rest of his life whenever he chances upon the door again, he finds himself too busy to enter. Eventually, he begins to regret never taking the chance to see the garden again more and more.
*The Door in the Wall* has many interpretations, but strikes at the heart of our sense of nostalgia and imagination.

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While reading a book on dreaming, a man is approached by a stranger who is eager to talk about the subject. The stranger chronicles a romantic series of dreams that unfolded to him over many nights of sleep, and which he struggled to separate from reality.
*A Dream of Armageddon* calls to us who think we are too old for fantasies of adventure, and beckons us to rekindle our childish dreams.

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In the diary of a disappeared man is found the story of his attempts to see into his past lives through the use of an occult drug. In his adventures, however, he discovered that his two lives are much more connected than he had assumed.
Clark Ashton Smith creates a rich, deep universe in *The Chain of Aforgomon* that is well worth getting lost in.

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Francis Melchior, a curious and nostalgic man is looking at a star when he falls unconscious and wakes up as if his entire mundane, human life had been a dream.
*The Planet of the Dead* challenges us with the theory that our human lives are inferior to the lives of our very own dreams.

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Under the light of the North Pole Star a man has visions of a ghostly city that become stronger and stronger each time, eventually allowing him to move and interact with as an inhabitant.
*Polaris* introduces Lovecraft’s more anguished and desperate desire for dream-worlds and the escape from a mundane reality.

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Randolph Carter journeys to his ancestral home to rekindle the dreams of his youth, dreams which have been replaced with a jaded reality. 
*The Silver Key* is written with a beautiful mastery of language, and shows us  what we have lost from growing old whether we want to see it or not.

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A man dreams of a majestic city above the sea full of glorious knights, rivers and ships. Desperate to return, he drugs himself to sleep over and over.
*Celephaïs* presents the tragic, fatal conclusion to a man unable to accept his life over the temptation of a dream.

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Immortality, alchemy and torturous poisons.

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A collection of gothic, science-fiction short stories. Read or download. Cool Air by H. P. Lovecraft, The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham by H. G. Wells.

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...and through this mist he was dimly aware that Manners had taken the empty glass from his relaxing fingers.” * The Plutonian Drug

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A  pencil sketch off a glass rotated six times in a loop and pouring into each other.

# [].stories[].description
Lovecraft was a man scared of many things, often taking inspirations from his nightmares. But what could possibly have been the inspiration for this story about the fear of cold air? Read about a man who lodges underneath a scientist that never leaves his room, a room full of contraptions and chemicals, and kept to freezing temperatures all day long. It is written in the typical, fancy tongue of Lovecraft, but more creepy and mysterious than horrifying as his other stories usually are.

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Edward Eden is approached by a strange man revealing himself to be the famous philosopher Egbert Elvesham, who has chosen to bequeath his wealthy inheritance upon Eden, but only if Eden agrees to take his name. This mystery gives very little away, but see if you can guess where it is going before the unfortunate protagonist does.

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This concept behind this story could easily be adapted into a whole novel, but it works magnificently enough as a short story. A man undergoes surgery to gain immortality, only for the secret behind it to be lost forever, leaving him destined to be the last man on Earth. He lives through generation after generation of people, experiencing history as it unfolds. But where does it all end? *The Coming of the Ice* is profound and curious, but ultimately a tale of tragedy.

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*A Thousand Deaths* is our final exploration of immortality, but this time from the angle of an unwilling victim. Jack London writes of a man who drowns at sea, is dragged onto a ship and finally brought back to life. His new captive takes the opportunity to kill him over and over again with various different methods to push his necromantic abilities further and further.

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*The Drug* follows the invention of a drug that allows people to unlock new areas in their brain. Like many tropes that have become quite common (e.g. *Lucy:2014* and *Limitless:2011*), it is interesting to see a take from the 20th century. C. C. Macapp writes of a newly discovered drug that makes the test pigs act very ‘un-pig-like’. The protagonist decides to take a risk and try the drug out for himself, to mixed results.

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Seeing time as a fourth dimension is a concept that might be older than you think. Clark Ashton Smith wrote about it here in this 1934 short story. A man agrees to take the unstudied drug ‘Plutonian’ that his friend claims will allow him to see time just as he sees the physical world around him. Watch out for the excellent use of foreshadowing and you will be able to catch the ending before it is too late.

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Fangs, claws, vanishing victims and terrible rumours.

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Horror Fantasy - Fangs, Claws, vanishing victims and terrible rumours. Robert E. Howard, Guy de Maupassant, H. G. Wells and more.

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“This thing is a mystery beyond my lore; but never, in all the practice of my art, has any shadow come to me unbidden.” * The Double Shadow

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A pencil sketch of a cloaked person with two shadows heading of left and right.

# [].stories[].description
In *The Double Shadow*, Clark Ashton Smith unrepentantly commits to his gothic tone. In this story, A master and apprentice of the occult acquire a tablet with inscriptions that not even the master in all his infamous wisdom can decipher. Emboldened by the mystery, the master endeavours to reveal the ancient secrets within whatever it may unleash.

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Arthur Conan Doyle would appreciate you reading one of his non-Holmes stories, in which he took greater pride. And you will appreciate it too, as it is expertly written. Dr. James Hardcastle hears rumour that something lurking within an opening to an old mine is responsible for sheep going missing on moonless nights. He can’t help himself from investigating within the tunnel. A thrilling adventure awaits him.

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While there hasn’t been any acknowledgement from anyone formally involved, elements of hit T.V. show Stranger Things are heavily influenced by *The Colour Out of Space*. In this story which is one of Lovecraft’s longer horrors, a meteorite crashes into a small, country town in a burst of light. Scientists come to the town to take samples of the rock, and soon discover peculiar qualities including an indescribable emitted light and a perpetual heat.

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In H. G. Wells’ dramatic tale *The Sea Raiders*, nothing can explain the decline of fish, disappearance of boats, and several dead whales washing onshore the English town of Sidmouth. That is, not until the retired Filon spots dozens of small animals on the shore during one of his walks.

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A strange, old man appears and offers an enthusiast of the horrible and deadly the chance to gaze upon the head of Medusa herself.

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The protagonists of horror stories are often sinners of a kind, with the horrible antagonistic representing some kind of primitive karma. *The Hound* is a prime example of this theme, following two graverobbers chased by a panting and growling monstrosity after messing with the wrong grave. It is a straightforward idea, but is fantastically executed by the fantastical Lovecraft.

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A WWII POW escapes a German ship and grounds himself ashore a murky, uncharted island. The slithering abomination that he finds there spawned a number of monsters in literature less than only Cthulhu himself.

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A man writes in his diary of an affliction that keeps him in a permanent panic. He begins to worry it is an unseen, living entity trying to control him. The entity, knows as *The Horla*, becomes more and more real each day.

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Short stories on living in the city. Henry Lawson, Aleksandr I. Kuprin, Aesop and more.

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A pencil sketch of sketch itself of a man on a horse being drawn into a binder.

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“And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy; Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go.” * Clancy of the Overflow

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A rambunctious Ukrainian barges back into his city friend’s life determined to ‘conquer Petersburg.’ Unfortunately for the so-called ‘provincial’, he finds the city and its dreary black fog to be fighting back.

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In a short fable from ancient Greece, a mouse from the country is invited by a city mouse to live where there is more food than you could ever need. But the country mouse doesn’t find the lifestyle so easy.

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A countryman defends the beauty of the country to a townsman who hates the rustic life.

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An office worker wonders what life would be like as a rural stock drover out in the open country of Australia.

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The author describes the sad and wan faces of the various kinds of people walking around in the city street.

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Sci-fi Adventure Stories on planets other than our own. C. C. MacApp, Tom Godwin, Ray Bradbury and more. Read or download.

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“All around him was a void so huge that galaxies were only specks in it....” * The Nothing Equation

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A pencil sketch of a mans white sillhouette in a black dome with twinkling stars.

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Gil Murdoch has ferried his wealthy, blind client to a hidden, alien hospital where they will heal his eyes with their firmly-guarded, cure-all virus. But Gil isn’t satisfied with a simple payment, and has other plans for Ganymede and their famous panacea. *A Guest of Ganymede* is a clever, heist thriller set in space with a great ending to boot.

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Tom Godwin gives us a very non-traditional sci-fi horror, with no typical monster or villainous adversary. The protagonist is the third man to try to survive a post at the new Galactic Observation Bureau. The previous two ended in insanity and suicide. *The Nothing Equation* is cleverly devised and even more cleverly written, ending in a way that ties the story up in a neat bow.

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Leonard Sale crashlands on a planet and has six days to spare before rescue with plenty of food and water as well as a conveniently breathable atmosphere. But his luck turns when he tries to fall asleep and begins to hear voices. *Asleep in Armageddon* is a tense psychological horror with a unique premise.

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After fleeing the planet as a lone survivor eight years ago, a pirate has brought Jim back as a hostage forced to guide them through the foreign terrain for treasure, no matter what deadly things may lurk there.

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Hugh befriends a strange man named Elkins, who’s nationality and race Hugh is unable to pin down. Elkins shows a mysteriously advanced understanding of modern science despite having no public fame or connections.

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Despite being tricked of her life savings in the past, Mrs. Bellowes truly believes that the charming Mr. Thirkell will make do on his promise of taking her on his rocket ship to see the Lord.

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Unrequited, unfinished and unsatisfying attempts at love.

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A collection of short stories on failed romances. Read or download. Too Early Spring by Stephen Vincent Benet, The Pearl of Love by H. G. Wells.

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“For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window.” * The Gift of the Magi

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A pencil sketch of a decorated comb and a cut lock of hair..

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A man reminisces on a falling in love with a girl when he was young. *Too Early Spring* is a classic tragedy of misunderstanding written with a beautiful use of language.

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The narrator tells of a prince who lost his beloved, and vowed to spend the rest of his life building a monument of her so glorious people would come far and wide to see it. H. G. Wells, who normally gives us time travel and aliens, has written a fantasy fable that pulls the rug out from under your feet with one final sentence. *The Pearl of Love* is one of Wells’ own favourite stories.

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Ryabovitch is by far the shyest officer in his battalion, with round shoulders and sparse whiskers. But when the local landowner invites the officers for dinner, Ryabovitch receives a startling surprise from one of the young women present. *The Kiss* is an anti-fantasy, where love not only loses but never even stood a chance.

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A young boy is obsessed with his friends sister and follows her around with little confidence in speaking to her. When she expresses disappointment at not being free to go to the ‘Araby’ bazaar, the boy promises to go himself and buy her something. *Araby* is a coming of age story with a pessimistic lesson to teach.

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An old and powerful magician thinks back to his youth, and of the young lover he once lost. He wonders if he, in all his power, could bring her back. *The Last Incantation* is a dramatic, archetypal fable on lost youth.

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A priest is appalled to discover that his young niece has found a lover. *Clair de Lune* is a story about religious rules and freedom.

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An unhappily married man meets a woman walking her dog and falls for her. *The Lady with the Dog* is one of Chekhov’s most famous stories, and considered one of the best pieces of prose ever written.

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A woman sells her prized locks to buy a present for her husband. But the gift turns sour when he walks in the door. *The Gift of the Magi* is a short piece, with a poignant tone.

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A collection of stories with clear messages.

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“And after this the real nightingale was banished from the empire, and the artificial bird placed on a silk cushion close to the emperor’s bed.” * The Nightingale

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A collection of stories on those excluded from society.

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“To whom shall I tell my grief?” * Misery

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Stories on appreciating the things around us.

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A collection of stories on appreciating the things around us..

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“All that makes our life worth living comes unstriven for and free.” * Come-By-Chance

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Science fiction stories with novel ideas.

# [].description
A collection of science fiction stories with novel ideas.

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“Remember that. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler-none of them exists.” * A Sound of Thunder

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“Norrrrrrrrrk. Norrrrrk. Wurrrrr. Wurrrrr.” * The Man Who Could Imitate a Bee

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“The other sniper, seeing the cap and rifle fall, thought that he had killed his man.” * The Sniper

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The best war short stories of history. Read or download. Cain by Aleksandr I. Kuprin, Beware of the Dog by Roald Dahl, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce.

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Perhaps more relevant than ever, Kuprin writes of an unnamed expedition by the Russian Empire. After sentencing an old man to death, he is visited at night by the very same man. How did he escape? What does he want? Who is he?

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A soldier finds his friend mortally wounded after a battle. With a revolver in hand, He ponders what he ought to do. *The Coup De Grâce* poses a moral question to the reader, and answers it with a bang.

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Roald Dahl writes the only piece on this list not explicitly anti-war. In this mystery, A British WWII pilot bails from his plane somewhere near the English channel, then wakes up in a hospital with a caring nurse and doctor who are overly interested in his squadron and other private details.

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*An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge* is perhaps the most famous short story about war in the English language. It is a poetically written piece that attempts to draw out some basic sympathy for the humanity in the soldiers on the other side. Bierce writes of a confederate soldier who is sentenced to death upon a bridge and reminisces on his life.

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A tale of tyranny told from the eyes of an obedient soldier. Stephen Vincent Benet delves into the thoughts of a young man marching the *Accursed people* through the desert and out of his homeland.

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A Republican sniper of the Irish civil war waits on a rooftop, pondering whether he can risk giving away his position by lighting his cigarette. He decides to take the risk, and faces the unexpected consequences. Written while the Irish Civil War was still ongoing, *The Sniper* was Liam O’Flaherty’s first published work, and went on to become his most famous.

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Guy de Maupassant wrote many stories on civilians caught up during the Franco-Prussian wars. *Father Milon* is a story about revenge, following the mysterious, nightly disappearings of occupying Prussian soldiers in a French village.

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“Perhaps the queerest thing was that they all looked so ordinary, so much a part of everyday.” * Into Egypt

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Drawing of a young soldier with a bayonet looking at a man.

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The scuttling, the screaming and the skulking.

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The scariest short stories of history. Read or download. The Hand by Guy De Maupassant, the Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, The Hound by H.P. Lovecraft.

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*The Monkey’s Paw* by W. W. Jacobs is the origin of the notorious talisman itself. This granter of tainted wishes has taken on a mythos of its own, and everyone knows its rule: ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
A man gifts a family with a strange artefact, but tells them of the tragic ending of its last owner. Ignoring the warning, the family asks for wealth immediately and pay the price the very next day.

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From the horrid mind of Clark Ashton Smith comes a story of a secret, terrible child kept behind bars. *The Nameless Offspring* is a true horror to its core.
On a trip of discovery to the place of his birth, Henry Chaldane happens upon the his father’s old friend’s house, surrounding which there are stories of a terrible, hidden child.

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Leave it to Lovecraft to make sleep scary. Hypnos is one of the weird-fiction author’s explorations of dreams, and the unknown mysteries that lie within. 
Two men use drugs to explore the barriers of unconsciousness during sleep. They go a little too far, and the consequences are horrifying for one of the pair, and worse than fatal for the other.

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Guy de Maupassant gives us a classic campfire ghost story of murderous vengeance.
A stranger comes to town, bringing with him a souvenir hand that he claims he cut off from an enemy. He insists as well that the hand itself still seeks its revenge.

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In The Black Cat, Edgar Allan Poe masters the sense of paranoia and omens of bad luck. 
A man suspects his wife’s adopted black cat to be the source of all his almost paranormal bad luck. In desperation, he resolves to take the beast out by whatever means necessary.

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*The Horrible* is a pair of stories within a story whose entire purpose is to define horror. They are more than just frightful and terrifying, they test one’s trust in human morality.
An army general tells to a table of men and women a pair of tales, one of soldiers deciding what to do with a captive elderly man thought to be a spy, and the other of men stranded in the desert and running low on food.

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*The Hound* is a prime example of karma manifested in a horror villain. The story follows a straightforward plot, but is fantastically executed by the dastardly Lovecraft. 
Two graverobbers are chased by a panting and growling monstrosity after messing with the wrong corpse. 

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Like Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu has had a longer-lasting renown than its author, having popped up in movies, T.V. videogames, books and tabletop games. The true horror of the monster, however, is best depicted in its original story, where Lovecraft did not merely make a good horror, but reinvented the genre and developed entirely new kinds of fear.
A man inherits a manuscript from his uncle, describing cases of insanity and mania sprouting at the same time every year around the globe, along with dreams of a titanic, petrifying *Thing*.

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“For God’s sake don’t let it in.” * The Monkey’s Paw

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Drawing of an old man and woman in a room looking very distressed.

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The valiant, the venturesome and the victorious.

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The Best Adventure Short Stories of History

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The best adventure short stories of history. Read or download. The Country of the Blind by H.G. Wells, The Unexpected by Jack London, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. 

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The *Country of the Blind* starts off as a regular adventure, following a man who falls off a mountainside into a mysterious town of people. The town has lived isolated from the rest of the world for generations, and have become blind. But over the course of the story, Wells delves deeper into the philosophical consequences of a man bringing the concept of sight back into a society that has learned to live without one. The newcomer struggles to fit in with the locals, who are all very suspicious of the two sensitive objects stuck in the middle of his face, and at various points chase him around and threaten to pull them out of his head. 

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While most of Jack London’s adventures focus on the threats posed by nature, *The Unexpected* adds the dangers of our fellow man. It starts as a typical tale of struggle against the wild, but takes a sharp turn halfway through and quickly starts putting forward difficult questions on what is justice and what is mercy, questions asked from behind the barrel of a loaded shotgun.

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*The Dangerous Game* is a classic adventure with a crashed ship, a strange island, a murderer, knives, and booby traps. It is the inspiration of the trope of the man who hunts men, spawning , movies and T.V. shows since, such as *A Game of Death (1945)*, *Surviving the Game (1994)*, and *The Hunt (2020)*.

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While most fictional explorers of deserts discover a lost tribe, or a booby-trapped catacomb, Clark Ashton Smith’s unfortunate protagonists discover blood-sucking, mind-controlling aliens in an invisible city. Wordy, but imaginative as Smith’s works all are, *The Invisible City* earns its place by being an out-there, unpredictable adventure.

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A zany ship captain and a much more reserved engineer venture off to deal with a so-called ‘Army of Ants’ ravaging Brazil. They come across more than they bargained for, with the ants outmanoeuvring them at every turn. *The Empire of the Ants* earns its place by being the funniest.

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Flight was the most exciting venture in the earliest twentieth century, with much to learn and much more to see in the realm of sky now accessible to humanity. Arthur Conan Doyle plays on this curiosity, adding a horror element to the mix. Pilot Joyce-Armstrong suspects there to be undiscovered ‘jungles’ in the air like there were in Africa and South America, and despite his ever-present fear, he feels he must be the first to discover them. *The Horror of the Heights* earns its place by building great tension throughout the story, and satisfying it at the end.

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Stephen Crane gives us not a spirited adventure of exploration, but one of survival. Four men try to reach safe land in a small dinghy, but cannot break the waves. The story is heavily tied to Crane’s own experience in the exact same situation, and was adapted from a purely non-fiction account of his experience. *The Open Boat* earns it’s place by being the most human and introspective.

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“Only the devil himself could follow that complicated trail through the jungle after dark. But perhaps the general was a devil...” * The Most Dangerous Game

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A drawing of a man in safari gear smoking a cigarrete under a tree in which a man hides.

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The simple, the short and the straightforward

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The Best Children’s Short Stories of History

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The best children’s short stories of history. Read or download. The Emperor's new clothes by Hans Christian Andersen. Honor Among Sportsmen by Richard Connell, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter.

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The classic fable on vanity and herd mentality. Two swindlers promise to make for a king a set of clothes so fine and so beautiful that only those ‘fit for their situation’ will be able to see it. A great tale for 5-10 year olds.

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A wacky story about truffle-hunters and their pigs. Two truffle-hunters get into an argument, resulting in the ‘ultimate insult’ and a potential duel to the death. A great tale for 8-12 year olds.

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Beatrix Potter’s renowned tale of a mischievous rabbit who runs off into the dangerous garden of Mr. McGregor. An innocent adventure, complete with the original watercolour drawings. Great for 2-6 year olds.

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The classic English fairy-tale of *Jack and the Beanstalk*, as retold by the gatherer of folklore, Flora Annie Steel. A great tale for 8-12 year olds.

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A short fable from Ancient Greece about working smarter and not harder. Takes only a minute to read and can be understood by children at any age.

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One of the darker childrens’ stories from the Brothers Grimm. A brother and sister are sent off into the woods where they find a gingerbread house owned by a hungry witch. A great tale for 8-12 year olds.

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“But he hasn’t got anything on!” * The Emperor’s New Clothes

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A king in a bare gown with no pants walks with his entourage in front of a crowd.

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The doomed, the dreary and the despairing.

# [].header_1
The Best Tragedy Short Stories of History

# [].description
The best tragedy short stories of history. Read or download. Allez by Aleksandr I Kuprin, Misery by Anton Chekhov, The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen.

# [].stories[].description
At number one, Kuprin explores abuse and exploitation through a collection of a circus girl’s memories from ages five to sixteen. Nora lives as an acrobat, eventually falling in love with a clown who joins the show. The story examines the cycle of mistreatment, and it’s not for the faint of heart.

# [].stories[].description
*Misery* is a subtle piece on grief and loss, one that holds off on telling its context straight away. On the surface it is a simple story about a cab driver searching for someone to talk to, and it never explicitly explains the past. Like all of Chekhov’s works it is beautifully written and intensely emotional.

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*Miss Harriet* is a romantic tragedy on unrequited love. In this story, a man tells a story of an older woman he met while travelling the countryside. She tends to keep to herself, but upon the man showing her one of his paintings, she asks to see him paint. Over time, she begins to meet with him more and more, and eventually expressing her doomed feelings.

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Henry Lawson tackles the guilt and insanity of a man who was unable to save those he loved. In *No Place for a Woman*, the farmer ‘Ratty Howlett’ deals with this tragedy the only way he can, complete denial. But one day a stranger comes that is able to tug at the threads and open up the past.

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Chekhov deals with the naivety of an abandoned child. His story is a letter written by an orphaned boy named Vanka. It is dedicated to his grandfather, begging him to take the boy away from his abusive life as a servant. But something about the letter says the chances are slim.

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*Sredni Vashtar* follows a boy suffering from neglect and loneliness. The boy takes solace in a small ferret he finds in his garden, and begins to obsess over the animal by deeming him a god and giving him the divine name of Sredni Vashtar.

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“To whom shall I tell my grief?” * Misery

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The foreboding, the frightful and the freakish

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The Best Gothic Short Stories of History

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The best gothic short stories of history. The Signal Man by Charles Dickens, The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe.

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A man of science marries a beautiful woman, but he becomes obsessed over a birthmark on her face which he sees as a blemish on what could be perfect. Nathaniel Hawthorne gives us an eloquently written, impactful, and memorable fable on the pursuit of perfection.

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A rail signal man has visions of a ghost trying to tell him something through cryptic, silent gestures. *The Signal* Man is a beautifully eerie tale from the king of ghosts himself, Charles Dickens.

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When a plague ravages a city, a rich prince invites all the well-to-dos to take sanctuary in his castle where they party and revel as though nothing ever changed. This dramatic fable appears at first glance to be an incredibly prophetic prediction of recent circumstances. But perhaps it is simply a repeating tale of greed as old as time.

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A woman, restrained to her house by her husband and sister-in-law, begins obsessing over wallpaper she finds disturbing. Charlotte Perkins Gilman gives us one of the hallmark pieces of early feminist literature, based on her own experiences with depression and childbirth.*, 

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An undertaker grows lax in his care for the burial process. Then one day he accidentally locks himself in a vault with several yet-to-be buried coffins and learns to regret having ever disrespected the dead. Although still filled with fear, this Lovecraft story is stripped of the typical terrifying monstrosities and psychic dread to reveal a purely gothic Lovecraft story.

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A man, scorned by another and vowing to get revenge, invites the guilty party down into a cellar under the pretense of helping him verify the authenticity of an expensive cask of amontillado. It is believed that Poe wrote *The Cask of Amontillado* as a quasi-threat to a fellow author who scorned him and his works in a satirical piece.

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“I believe his eye-for-an-eye fury could beat old Father Death himself.” * In the Vault

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Drawing of a man with his upper body hanging over a door and reaching out.

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The inventive, the interesting and the interplanetary.

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The Best Sci-Fi Short Stories of History

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The best sci-fi short stories of history. Read or download. A Guest of Ganymede by C. C. Macapp, The Nothing Equation by Tom Godwin, 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut.

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At number one, we have the adventurous, heist thriller from the unknown C. C. Macapp. Despite never reaching much success as an author aside from a few publications in sci-fi magazines, *A Guest of Ganymede* is a fantastic idea for an adventure in space, terrifically executed in its pacing. In the story, Gil Murdoch has ferried his wealthy, blind client to a hidden, alien hospital where they will heal his eyes with their firmly-guarded, cure-all virus. But Gil isn’t satisfied with a simple payment, and has other plans for the priceless drug.

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This story is wacky and imaginative, but surprisingly touching with a very thoughtful ending. Peter and Polly Horn give birth to a child in the wrong dimension, and the baby comes out appearing to everyday people in the regular world as a small, blue pyramid. Peter and Polly have to decide whether they can still love their child as it, he, or she is. If you want a happy and sweet sci-fi story, this one is for you.

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Tom Godwin gives us a very non-traditional sci-fi horror, with no typical monster or villainous adversary. The protagonist is the third man to try to survive a post at the new Galactic Observation Bureau. The previous two ended in insanity and suicide. *The Nothing Equation* is cleverly devised and even more cleverly written, ending in a way that ties the story up in a neat bow.

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Vonnegut is one of the pioneers of dystopian fiction, and of his short stories *2BR02B* is his most famous tale of bleak futures. Death as we know it has been solved, and the population of the United states is stabilised, but a father waits anxiously for his wife to give birth to triplets and for the consequences it brings. It is jarring and tragic, and not for light reading.

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Seeing time as a fourth dimension is a concept that might be older than you think. Clark Ashton Smith wrote about it here in this 1934 short story. A man agrees to take the unstudied drug ‘Plutonian’ that his friend claims will allow him to see time just as he sees the physical world around him. Watch out for the excellent use of foretelling and you will be able to catch the ending before it is too late.

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This concept behind this story could easily be adapted into a whole novel, but it works magnificently enough as a short story. A man undergoes surgery to gain immortality, only for the secret behind it to be lost forever, leaving him destined to be the last man on Earth. He lives through generation after generation of people, experiencing history as it unfolds. But where does it all end? *The Coming of the Ice* is profound and curious, but ultimately a tale of tragedy.

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Ending with something light-hearted, we have one of the many prophetic predictions of H.G. Wells. He wrote of the race for heavier-than-air flight as it was happening, and just before it was finished. A fictional duo of inventors, Monson and Woodhouse strive to create the first flying machine while the London public laughs at their failed attempts. It is silly and adventurous, and ends with a bang.

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“Your baby was born into—another dimension.” * The Shape of Things

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Drawing of a man in pilot gear and a woman in a vehicle.

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The musical, the mesmeric and the masterful.

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The best poetry of history. Read or download. Clancy of the Overflow by Banjo Paterson, Invictus by W. E. Henley, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.

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The classic Australian bush Poet, Banjo Paterson, provides us with the number one poem, *Clancy of the Overflow*, about a simple city man contemplating the adventurous life of a rural stock drover. This poem is a harsh criticism of how dreary the rat race could feel, even in the 19th century.

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*Invictus* is the literary embodiment of courage and resilience, and a cornerstone of British cultural pride in and of itself, having been quoted by Churchill in his books and speeches. It is said that W. E. Henley wrote this poem to express his pride in having braved the amputation of and subsequent surgeries around his leg.

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Although often referred to under the umbrella of the horror mystique surrounding Poe, *The Raven* is more of a tale of tragedy. A raven visits a man and torments him over the tragic loss of his lover while only ever saying one word over and over again.

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Henry Lawson comes to the defence of life and ambition against the dreary and miserable authors who he calls *The Poets of the Tomb*. The poem points out the value of a living man and the good that he can do if he doesn’t give up on life.

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*The Geebung Polo-Club* is one of the few comedic poems by Banjo Paterson, and has aged extremely weel for 19th century humour. A mountain-side polo club and a posh, city polo club have a match to determine who’s the best once and for all.

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*Alone* is a pure and honest piece on the feeling of being different and isolated. Although published after his death, evidence surrounding the original manuscript suggests this was written by Poe when he was only twenty. It is deeply heartfelt and sorrowful.

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Rudyark Kipling’s widely famous poem *If* is a guide on how to stay on the straight and narrow path in life. It is a motivating poem full of wisdom.

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This adventurous epic is a cornerstone of Australian identity, with references in modern songs, movies and literature, statues and a place alongside it’s author on the Australian $5 note. In this poem, A prized, young racehorse escapes into the wild, and all the best horsemen gather for one glorious chase.

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“From childhood’s hour I have not been as others were.” * Alone

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A man with a billowing coat looks at a spectral-faced cloud.

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The deep, the difficult and the detailed.

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The Best Literary Short Stories of History

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The best literary short stories of history. Read or download. My Uncle Jules by Guy De Maupassant, Black Fog by Aleksandr I. Kuprin, The Mantle by Nikolai Gogol.

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This tale from French author Guy de Maupassant is a cynical exposé on people and how they treat family. The poverty-stricken Davranche family holds out hope that an estranged uncle will return from America with a large fortune, after they receive a letter saying he has turned his life around and will repay his debts to the father.

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Kuprin writes on the clash of a city man and a country man in *Black Fog*. A rambunctious Ukrainian barges back into Petersburg and his old friend’s life determined to ‘Conquer’ the city.

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*The Blood of the Martyrs* examines the difficulty of standing by your own morals and truths in the face of persecution. In this story, a Professor Malzius is imprisioned by a regime of an unspecified nation whose name becomes increasingly obvious as the story unfolds. The professor is given the chance to return to his research and experiments at his old university, in exchange for giving up certain information.

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Like James Joyce for Ireland, and Banjo Patterson for Australia, Alexander Kuprin tries to capture the soul of the people around him in his stories. *A Slav Soul* follows a man’s boyhood memories of his fathers servant, who despite his odd quirks and deficiencies manages to capture the essence of the ‘Slav Soul’.

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*The Mantle* (Also known as *The Overcoat*, or *The Cloak*) is considered the keystone short story of Russian literature. Despite the simple structure of the plot, much of both beauty and suffering are packed into this story of a poor man planning on buying a new coat.

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman was always looking at the story of gender. And once again she sheds new light on the matter. In *If I Were a Man*, Mollie Mathewson suddenly finds herself seeing the world through her husbands eyes, and discovers the perspective of men.

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In *The Man in a Case*, Byelikov the schoolteacher finally comes upon a woman interested in him, but he hesitates at the idea of marriage. Chekhov presents a character perfectly representing the kind of man that never takes risks, never opens up, and inevitably ruins his own opportunity to become more than he was.

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“I had heard about him since childhood, and it seemed to me that I should recognize him immediately.” * My Uncle Jules

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Drawing of a crowd watching an arriving ship

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The unknown, the unseen and the unheard.

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The Best Mystery Short Stories of History

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The best mystery short stories of history, Cool Air by H. P. Lovecraft, The Magic Shop by H. G. Wells, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton by Arthur Conan Doyle.

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There has to be one Sherlock Holmes story, and this one stands out above the rest in my eyes. Holmes must help the Lady Evan Brackwell, who has fallen prey to the infamous king of blackmail, Charles Augustus Milverton. But unlike most of Holmes’ stories,  he is unable to capture the villain at the end.

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G. K. Chesterton introduces the famous priest-turned-detective, Father Brown in *The Blue Cross*. A Paris policeman attempts to track down the notorious criminal Flambeau and finds peculiar clues on the way that seem to have been left behind on purpose.

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A clever tale by the creative mind of Richard Connell. After an innocent discussion on what could constitute the perfect heist, the very act is committed the next day.

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Thomas Carnacki brings to his cases not only a magnifying glass, but chalk and vacuum tubes. For he has more than mere human murderers to contend with. *The Gateway of the Monster* is the first of the occult detective’s story, where he faces off with a particularly destructive spirit.

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A mysterious shop with a mysterious shopkeeper is a common trope, but probably because H. G. Wells wrote it first. A father is pulled into one of these stores by his son, where the shopman demonstrates tricks that appear less and less like ‘tricks’ and more and more like genuine miracles. The final trick leaves the father demanding to know what has happened to his son.

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Hercule Poirot is perhaps the best selling character of all time. In *The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge*, he doesn’t even need to get out of his bed to solve a thrilling mystery. Kept to his bed by *La Grippe*, Poirot sends his associate Hastings to help a man whose uncle has been shot in the back of the head in the gun-room of his own hunting lodge.

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Lovecraft was a man scared of many things, often taking inspirations from his nightmares. But what could possible have been the inspiration for this story about the fear of cold air? Read about a man who lodges underneath a scientist that never leaves his room, a room full of contraptions and chemicals, and kept to freezing temperatures all day long. It is written in the typical, fancy tongue of Lovecraft, but more creepy and mysterious than horrifying as his other stories usually are.

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Wells provides a great mystery again in *The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham*. Edward Eden is approached by a strange man revealing himself to be the famous philosopher Egbert Elvesham, who has chosen to bequeath his wealthy inheritance upon Eden, but only if Eden agrees to take his name. This mystery gives very little away, but see if you can guess where it is going before the unfortunate protagonist does.

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Arthur Conan Doyle would appreciate you reading one of his non-Holmes stories, in which he took greater pride. And you will appreciate it too, as it is expertly written. Dr. James Hardcastle hears rumour that something lurking within an opening to an old mine is responsible for sheep going missing on moonless nights. He can’t help himself from investigating within the tunnel. A thrilling adventure awaits him.

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Another Lovecraft story, but this one with many fewer answers given. An explorer hears a forceful wind leaving a cave entrance and enters to find out its origin. *The Nameless City* is a strong example of Lovecraft’s style, from the language of the descriptions to the very typical title.

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“Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton.” * The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton

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Drawing of a man in a robe and top hat stands in the shadows with his hands clasped.

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The magical, the monstrous and the magnificent.

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The Best Fantasy Short Stories of History

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The best fantasy short stories of history. Read or download. A Dream of Armageddon by H. G. Wells, The Last Incantation by Clark Ashton Smith, Celephais by H. P. Lovecraft.

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On a train a man meets a stranger desperate to divulge a recent series of dreams. He chronicles a surprisingly detailed adventure that unfolded over many nights, full of love and loss, paradise and war, and a dramatic end. H. G. Wells packs an entire odyssey into this 10,000 word short story, and it bursts at the seams with imagination.

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A philosophical fable from the usually weird and horrid mind of Clark Ashton Smith, friend and colleague of the equally weird and horrid Lovecraft. An old and powerful magician thinks back to his youth, and of the young lover he once lost. He wonders if he, in all his power, could bring her back.

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The most tragic of Lovecraft’s stories on dreams. A man dreams of a majestic city above the sea full of glorious knights, rivers and ships. Desperate to return he drugs himself to sleep over and over.

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A short fable on devotion by H. G. Wells. A prince who lost his beloved princess vows to spend the rest of his life building a monument of her so glorious people would come far and wide to see it.

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A gothic tale of two necromancers living on a castle on a cliff. In their ambitions to discover all there is to know about the dark side of magic, they bite off more than they can chew.

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This is a prophetic, dystopian vision of the future by the lesser known Stephen Vincent Benét. It’s hard to believe that this story is nearly ninety years old when it feels so modern in it’s concepts and predictions of technology. In this story a young man chooses to leave his tribe and explore ‘The Place of the Gods’, but the Gods are revealed to be not what they seem.

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If a story is relayed by a pirate in a bar then you know it’s going to be worth your time. A crew of buccaneers find a mysterious bottle on a beach, temptingly smelling like a wine from a different era, aged to perfection. But when they drink it they start to have strange feelings and strange visions in the sea.

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The very first of the Conan the Barbarian stories, and one of the best. Four rebels commit an assassination attempt on Conan, the current king of the land. But things go terribly wrong for the traitors when they begin to stab each other in the back.

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H. G. Wells’ most famous, and most difficult to interpret short story. In *The Door in the Wall*, a man recounts the story of a magical world he once explored as a child but has never been able to return to again. The world, and the door which leads to it, have been interpreted by readers as many different things, but all of them existentially tragic.

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“There was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars.” * The Phoenix on the Sword

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Drawing of a man in roman armour holding an axe as a wolf-featured man leans over him.

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The odd, the obtuse and the over-the-top.

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The Best Quirky Short Stories of History

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The funniest short stories of history. Read or download. The Man Who Could Imitate a Bee by Richard Connell, Johnny Pye and the Fool-Killer by Stephen Vincent Benet, And All the Earth a Grave by C. C. Macapp.

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A genius story about unwanted fame and one-hit-wonders from an author only famous for one story—*The Most Dangerous Game*. A young scientist stoops to cheap comedy to gain the interest of a girl and her peers, but the attention quickly turns sour for the young man. *The Man Who Could Imitate a Bee* is a hilarious tale with a lovable protagonist.

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A deep and thought-provoking story hidden under a layer of silliness. A young boy’s parents call him a fool and warn him the fool-killer will get him someday. So the impressionable lad runs away and spends years trying to find an adult that can make a clever man out of him. *Johnny Pye and the Fool-Killer* is a timeless masterpiece.

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A wacky concept from the creative C. C. MacApp. A coffin factory accidentally overbudgets the marketing team a hundred fold... leading to complete success. *And All the Earth a Grave* provides an interesting take on the end of humanity.

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Another genius tale from Richard Connell, this one is more wacky than *The Man Who Could Imitate a Bee*, but has a touching ending to seal it off. In it, A lonely wax museum worker must save his friends when the museum closes down.

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A satire from the father of short stories himself, Anton Chekhov. A policeman tries to find and punish the owner of an unclaimed dog which has bitten a man walking on the street, only to realise that the owner is a high-ranking official. Chekhov satirises corruption and boot-licking.

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*A Reputation* inspired the 1941 drama Meet John Doe, but the two are mainly different stories. In *A Reputation*, Saunders Rook wants very badly to be as popular as the others of his club of liberal professionals, so he blurts out the first thing he can think of that will get him some attention. Unfortunately, he leaves himself with no choice but to stick by what he says. This satirical piece deeply criticises society and the media and is well worth the read.

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Kuprin loved to critique the boring, complacent attitudes of people in cities much like his Russian Contemporaries. *The Last Word* is a very direct and unapologetic complaint, following a man who admits to murder. The man explains that he knew the victim since childhood and had seen him in school, in the public, and everywhere else entirely on the faces of every man he had ever met.

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In this story, Connell tackles blind patriotism and the way it is used to manipulate naïve and struggling men. *The Battle of Washingon Square* is about A young, vagrant man who is drafted and soon finds that everyone begins to treat him with much more respect. He begins to yearn being sent to combat and receiving the chance to prove himself.

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*The Orator* is a small, classic, comedy of a man who is tasked with giving a speech at a funeral, only to realise near the end that he has gotten one very important detail wrong. It is charming, and an easy read.

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“Oh, Bernice, do come over here. You simply must hear Mr. Mullett imitate a trained seal!” * The Man Who Could Imitate a Bee 

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A sketch of a party of six people sitting together with a man in the middle with pursed lips as if whistling.