Classic Literature Short Stories

This collection of over 50 stories brings together three of Enid Blyton's earliest and most imaginative story collections - The Book of Fairies (1924), The Book of Brownies (1926) and The Book of Pixies (1989) - and shows Blyton at her most imaginative and playful.

Showcasing the best of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories including his well-known classics - as featured in the magnificent three-part, six-hour PBS documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick - this new collection is introduced by award-winning author Tobias Wolff.

A mysterious island, shrouded in fear, evil, and darkness. Here the amoral General Zaroff hunts. And what, you ask, is the most dangerous game? It is the manner and substance of his nightly killings.

With this, his first collection of stories, Raymond Carver breathed new life into the American short story and instantly became both the recognized master of the form and one of our best-loved fiction writers. Carver shows us the humor and tragedy that dwell in the hearts of ordinary people; his stories are the classics of our time.

A collection of short stories, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories was first published in 1979 and awarded the Cheltenham Festival Literary Prize. This Audible exclusive adaptation is narrated by legendary actors, Richard Armitage and Emilia Fox, who take on different chapters of the audiobook. Among these are 'The Bloody Chamber', 'The Courtship of Mr Lyon', 'The Tiger's Bride', 'Puss in Boots', 'The Erl-King', 'The Snow Child', 'The Lady of the House of Love', 'The Werewolf' and 'Wolf-Alice'.

Newly re-mastered for digital formats, this is the definitive recording of Hans Christian Andersen's six best-loved stories. Narrator Diane Wolkstein, the artistic director of the Hans Christian Andersen Center in New York City, tells Andersen stories throughout the world. She is the author of 23 award-winning books of folklore and has been honored by the National Storytelling Network as a recipient of its coveted Circle of Excellence Award, a designation reserved for America's best living storytellers.

All the delightful and bizarre inhabitants of Wonderland are here: the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat, the hooka-smoking Caterpillar and the Mad Hatter, the March Hare and the Ugly Duchess... and, of course, Alice herself - growing alternately taller and smaller, attending demented tea parties and eccentric croquet games, and observing everything with clarity and rational amazement.

Throughout Proust's life, nine of his short stories remained unseen - the writer never spoke of them. Why did he choose not to publish them along with the others? One possible answer is that he was developing his themes in preparation for his masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time; another is that the stories were too audacious - too near to life - for the censorious society of the time. In these stories, published here for the first time, we find an intimate picture of a young author full of darkness and melancholy, longing to reveal his true self to the world.

Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone brilliantly interpret twenty of Edgar Allan Poe's most chilling stories and poems - an unforgettably intense listening experience!

Fine-art aficionado. Master of disguise. Jewelry expert. Historian. Gentleman. Burglar. Arsene Lupin is all of these and more. In 1905, Maurice Leblanc introduced his gentleman-burglar in the story "L'Arrestation d'Arsène Lupin". Shortly thereafter, the stories were collected as one single volume. In these charming adventures, Lupin orchestrates a myriad of extravagant heists in the very face of the determined Inspector Ganimard.

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

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.

Three years have passed since Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Moriarty vanished into the abyss of the Reichenbach Falls. In that time the criminals of London have been able to sleep safe in their beds. But the capital has never been in greater need of its protector.

Written initially in French, later translated by the author into English, Molloy is the first book in Dublin-born Samuel Beckett's trilogy. It was published shortly after WWII and marked a new, mature writing style, which was to dominate the remainder of his working life. Molloy is less a novel than a set of two monologues narrated by Molloy and his pursuer, Moran.

"He travels fastest who travels alone...but not after the frost has dropped below zero 50 degrees or more." (Yukon Code) Jack London’s best short story.

A collection of classic works by Edgar Allan Poe, American author, poet, editor and literary critic. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

F. Scott Fitzgerald makes antebellum Baltimore his setting for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a fantastical tale with some Poe-like overtones about a baby born at age 70 who then lives life in reverse, his hair turning "in the dozen years of his life from white to iron-gray, the network of wrinkles on his face becoming less pronounced". What ramifications that creates for Benjamin's relationship with his father first and then later with his wife and his own son makes for some fantastical situations.

The Awakening, a novel by Kate Chopin, was first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf Coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South. It is widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism with themes that are still relevant today.

When it comes to the holidays, no story captures the true spirit of giving like O. Henry’s classic "The Gift of the Magi". And in celebration of the season, Audie Award® winners Katherine Kellgren, Oliver Wyman, and Jonathan Davis bring to life this timeless Christmas tale, plus two more of O. Henry’s holiday gems: "The Cop and the Anthem" and "The Last Leaf".

Murder comes in two familiar forms. Whether as a crime of passion with high emotions or a cold dispassionate plot to take life in order to gain in some way, the act strikes us all as somehow inhuman. Beneath us as civilised beings. But however we cloak our animal instincts the need to remove a human being and gain relief from abuse or gain from money, the term is just the same – MURDER. Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, W W Jacobs and many others bring their literary heft to bear in as calculating a way as any killer could.