English Classic Short Stories

An entertaining selection of short stories including tales by George Eliot, O'Henry, Saki and Charles Dickens.

A chilling short story from the author of Dracula. In the Valley of the Shadow is a tale about a delirious man and his hallucinations while hospitalized.

"The Crystal Cup" reveals the struggle a young artist faces when he is taken from his family and forced to work for the king. He is promised freedom in return for his hard work making a perfect crystal vase. But the story takes a tragic twist when he dies immediately following his completion of the vase. The king jeopardizes his reign after displaying the artist's remains alongside the vase during a feast at the castle.

A timeless collection of classic short stories by some of the master storytellers of the world. Old Iron by Stacy Aumonier, Odour of Chrysanthemums by D. H. Lawrence, The Idiot by Arnold Bennett, Miss Harriet by Guy de Maupassant, Red Hanrahan by W. B. Yeats, The Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield, The Devil's Spectacles by Wilkie Collins, The Model Millionaire by Oscar Wilde, Miss Bracegirdle does her Duty by Stacy Aumonier, The Piece of String by Guy de Maupassant, Glad Ghosts by D. H. Lawrence.

Fifty terrifying short stories from the great classic horror writers: 1. 'Pigeons from Hell' by Robert E. Howard 2. 'Pickman’s Model' by H. P. Lovecraft 3. 'The Horror Horn' by E. F. Benson 4. 'The Fearsome Touch of Death' by Robert E. Howard 5. 'The Terrible Old Man' by H. P. Lovecraft 6. 'The Step' by E. F. Benson 7. 'Dagon' by H. P. Lovecraft 8. 'The Dream Snake' by Robert E. Howard 9. 'Caterpillars' by E. F. Benson 10. 'The Clock' by W. F. Harvey 11. 'In the Forest of Villefore' by Robert E. Howard

Twenty classic authors from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction are brought together in the latest “Bodies from the Library” anthology series of previously unpublished and uncollected stories of crime and suspense.

Science fiction at its literate best with every story a little gem. Authors include Jack London, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

In the realm of the short story, Katherine Mansfield established a highly original style. Undramatic, poetic and lyrical, her writing is exquisitely subtle in its treatment of human behaviour. When these 14 short stories were published in 1920, she had already effected a transformation in this form of fiction, and her influence has been deeply felt by subsequent writers.

There are a lot of benefits that come from bedtime stories for your children. Such benefits are as follows: It links to higher academic achievement, children tend to have higher social skills and behavior, it is a way for children to learn new words and practice languages, story time together can help children understand the world better and develop empathy, and it is also a great bonding time for the family.

Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically - it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. Society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers and mass-marketed psychedelic drugs.

Published in chronological order, with extensive story and bibliographic notes, this series not only provides access to stories that have been out of print for years, but gives them a historical and social context. Series editors Scott Conners and Ronald S. Hilger excavated the still-existing manuscripts, letters and various published versions of the stories, creating a definitive "preferred text" for Smith's entire body of work. This third volume of the series brings together 21 of his fantasy stories.

'Malachi’s Cove' tells the story of Mally Trenglos and Barry Gunliffe, who both earn their living by gathering seaweed. They are sworn enemies unit la near fatal accident seals their fate forever. Father Giles of Ballymoy is a hospitable Irish priest whose strange ways are at first misinterpreted by an English visitor.

These three stories are amongst the finest by Katherine Mansfield, a woman highly regarded as one of the greatest writers of short stories. In these bittersweet tales, she gently reveals the emotions and feelings within the lives of apparently unexceptional people. Her stories offer a sensitive insight into human behaviour, achieved not by creating scenes of high drama, but by revealing the motives and thoughts of believable characters.

We begin with one of Hardy’s best regarded stories, 'The Fiddler of the Reels'. Here Hardy exposes a supernatural and demonic theme, against a realistic and historical background of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the first trains. A typical Wessex girl is gripped by the power of music and dance when a lone fiddler casts his spell on her, causing her cloying but plain suitor to leave suddenly for London.

A glorious collection of some of the finest British short stories ever written. The Dog – Arnold Bennet, Not On The Passenger List – Barry Pain, The Old Man’s Tale About The Queer Client – Charles Dickens, The Half Brothers – Elizabeth Gaskell, The Veiled Portrait – James McGovan, Markheim – Robert Louis Stevenson, The Bottle Imp – Robert Louis Stevenson, The Adventures Of The Kind Mr. Smith – William J. Locke, The Man Of Mystery – Barry Pain, The Brazilian Cat – Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle.

Come join Holmes and Watson as they solve the mystery of the missing racehorse, Silver Blaze, in child-friendly 21st-century English and with the seamier side of Victorian life left out.

Typhoon is the story of a steamship and her crew beset by a tempest and of the captain whose dogged courage is tested to the limit. Captain MacWhirr was an ordinary man. However, when his steamer Nan-Shan blunders into a hurricane, he and his crew must pull together to survive. The steadfast courage of an undemonstrative captain and the imaginative readiness of his young first mate becomes a partnership vital to human survival as they are challenged from without by the elements, and from within by human doubts and fears.

An old man recounts the story of a death he witnessed as a young boy working in the theater: His boss, Mr. Haliday, had married a pretty young lady from the theater, much to the chagrin of the other women working in the company. It was a marriage of convenience, but in the beginning they got along well enough. After a handsome younger man, Henry Mortimer, joins the theater company, Mrs. Haliday and Mortimer start up a romance that everyone but Mr. Haliday seem to notice.

Theirs was a story of two people from different stations of life - he, poor and she, rich. He worked hard to make a name for himself, and having done so, he returns to her to find out that she had loved him all these years and was waiting for him as well. The poet is so distraught that with it having taken so long for them to be together, it seems even more unfair for them to be separated at the end. Finding out that his love has passed away, he immediately decides to follow after her to the Castle of the King of Death.

China has been a wellspring of storytelling for over 2,000 years. Sadly, this fantastic literature is little known in the west outside the halls of academia, though a handful of recent 20th century authors have attained a respectable following. The stories in this volume date from the sixth century A.D. to the early part of the 20th century, and will give the listener a good feel for the subject. Astonishingly, the Chinese enjoyed from the earliest times many of the genres we take for granted today.