Girls Classics

First published in the English literary anthology annual The Keepsake in 1833 by Mary Shelly, master of Gothic fiction, The Invisible Girl is a story about the turbulence of secret love. Like much of her work, Shelly blends the dark and the supernatural with elements of romance and intimacy and unravels this story within a story with aplomb, and the setting of rural Wales in the early 19th century lends to the foreboding and bittersweet tone of the tale.

"The Goose Girl" is a German fairy tale in which a widowed queen sends her daughter to her bridegroom in a faraway land, only accompanied by a waiting maid and a magical talking horse. But the evil maid rebels and forces the princess into trading clothes with her and swearing secrecy, effectively taking her place until they arrive at a foreign palace.

'The Red-Haired Girl' is a ghost story about an eerie and ominous servant-girl who stalks the house watching its inhabitants malevolently.

A poor little girl tries to sell matchsticks on a bitter cold New Year's Eve, when most people are having a party inside where it’s warm and are eating good food. She must earn money for her starving family, but no one buys her matchsticks. So she uses the matches to get warm and has an incredible experience on the last evening of the year.

It is the last night of the year on a freezing night in London and the pitiful little match girl has not sold a single bundle of matches all day. But she can't go home without money so, what will she do? This sad tale by Andersen reaches into our very souls and hearts to evoke the deepest emotions in all of us. Her rescuer comes but the price is high. Very high.

Welcome to a wonderful slice of backwoods American humor. F. Scott Fitzgerald penned this delightful short tale of love, feuds, whiskey, and rye. Narrator Glenn Hascall follows the story with character and wit fully intact. This may remind you of classic love stories, but the twists, turns, and slingshots make something entirely different.

Glenn Hascell narrates this charming Hans Christian Andersen tale of a little girl forced to try to sell matches on the street by her father on Christmas Eve.

"Twenty-Six Men and a Girl" is a short story written by the Russian writer Maxim Gorky in 1899, and is one of his most famous. It is a pioneering tale of social realism (the story predates Soviet socialist realism), and is a lament of lost ideals. Twenty-six men slave away in a cellar, making kringles, looked down on by all around them, including the bread bakers. Their only joy in their lives is the 16-year-old Tanya, who visits them every morning to collect kringles.

This is a story from the Andersen's Fairy Tales collection.

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) is generally considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. The Chorus Girl tells the tale of a mistress who is confronted unexpectedly by her lover's wife. In the meantime the cheating husband is hiding in the next room. The dialogue between the two women is classic of Chekhov's genius... he captures a person's entire character and soul within a few paragraphs and then catapults them into a crisis from which they emerge changed.

One day when she was younger and better looking, and when her voice was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of inferior port, felt ill humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored and waiting for the heat of the day to be over in order to go for a walk. Read in English, unabridged.

This is a story from the In the Ravine and Other Stories collection.

Lyt til H. C. Andersens fortryllende eventyr om Den Lille Pige Med Svovlstikkerne i denne stemningsfyldte lydbog med musik og lyd, fortalt på dansk af Dan Schlosser. En fattig, lille pige forsøger at sælge svolstikker til folk i den bidende kulde nytårsaften, hvor de fleste holder fest inde i varmen og spiser god mad. Hun skal tjene penge til sin sultende familie, men ingen køber af hende. Svovlstikkerne giver hende nogle andre, store oplevelser på årets sidste aften.

Hören Sie Hans Christian Andersen's bezauberndes Weihnachtsmärchen Das kleine Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern in diesem spannenden Hörbuch begleitet von schöner Musik und Klangeffekten. Auf Deutsch gelesen von Samy Andersen. Ein armes kleines Mädchen versucht am bitterkalten Neujahrsabend, wo die meisten Menschen zu Hause sind und in der warmen Stube feiern und essen, Schwefelhölzer zu verkaufen. Sie muss Geld für ihre hungernde Familie verdienen.

Lytt til Hans Christian Andersens fortryllende eventyr om Den Lille Piken Med Svovelstikkene i denne stemningsfylte lydboken med musikk og lyd, lest inn på norsk av Edith Lauglo Endsjø. En fattig liten pike forsøker å selge svovelstikker til folk i den bitende kulden på nyttårsaften, hvor de fleste holder fest inne i varmen og spiser god mat. Hun skal tjene penger til sin sultende familie, men ingen kjøper noe fra henne. Svovelstikkene gir henne noen andre store opplevelser på årets siste kveld.

Two delightful, fanciful, and heartwarming stories. "The Velveteen Rabbit" tells the tale of a stuffed rabbit that longs to become real, while "The Girl Who Owned a Bear" tells of a little girl who receives a magical book filled with the most unpredictable of magic.

Two little girls from different houses happened to meet in a lane between two homesteads, where the dirty water, after running through the farmyards, had formed a large puddle. One girl was very small, the other a little bigger. Their mothers had dressed them both in new frocks. The little one wore a blue frock, the other a yellow print, and both had red kerchiefs on their heads. They had just come from church when they met, and first they showed each other their finery, and then they began to play....

Few winter stories are more affecting than Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Written in 1848, and strictly speaking a New Year's Eve story, it showed so clearly then, as it does now, that the Christmas holidays do not represent fireside, food, and presents for all. This story never fails to move, yet it somehow avoids serious sentimentality.

"The Little Match Girl" is a short story by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It was first published in 1845. We use the public domain English text from A Christmas Greeting: A Series of Stories by H. C. Andersen in Project Gutenberg.

On New Year’s Eve, a small, poor girl walks in the darkness and cold trying to sell her matches. Hungry and frozen, she curls up in a nook and lights her matches in search for warmth. Looking into the glow of the matches, she is transported far, far away from the hunger and the cold.