Short Classics

Enjoy the freedom of the outdoors, the beauty of the countryside and the charm of all creatures, great and small, in this bumper short-story collection. Enid Blyton loved the countryside, animals and birds, and she wrote many wonderful stories to teach children all about the natural world. Each story is perfect for young children and is the ideal length for bedtime or classroom story time.

This wonderful collection of 18 short stories includes work by some of literature's most treasured names, including Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Oscar Wilde, and many more. This superlative treasury includes "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe; "A Piece of String" by Guy Le Maupassant; "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin; "The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf; "Nuns at Lunch" by Aldous Huxley, and many more!

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.

"One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet's house to see what Piglet was doing." Thus begins The House At Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne's wonderful companion volume to Winnie-the-Pooh. You will rediscover Pooh, Christopher Robin, Piglet, Eeyore, and all their friends, and be introduced to the irrepressible and very bouncy Tigger.

The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories is a bizarre and colorful collection containing the finest short stories by the iconic Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. From the witty and Kafkaesque "The Nose", where a civil servant wakes up one day to find his nose missing, to the moving and evocative "The Overcoat", about a reclusive man whose only ambition is to replace his old, threadbare coat, Gogol gives us a unique take on the absurd.

The American Classics Collection: Volume II is a century-spanning collection of 15 classic novels, short stories, essay, and poetry by American authors, read by a cast of incredible narrators including Adam Sims; Nathan Osgood; Robert G. Slade; Jonathan Keeble, Katherine Fenton; and more. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including Herman Melville; Upton Sinclair; Mark Twain; Walt Whitman; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Thornton Wilder; Edith Wharton; Jack London; amongst a host of others. The titles included in this collection, in chronological order, are:

First published in 1893 as a children's book to encourage the humane treatment of animals, Beautiful Joe has taken it's place along with Black Beauty, becoming a favorite of several generations of youngsters. Beautiful Joe narrates the story of his mutilation at the hands of a cruel master and the love he finds in the home of a caring family full of kids and animals.

At 16, Anne is grown up...almost. Her gray eyes shine like evening stars, but her red hair is still as peppery as her temper. In the years since she arrived at Green Gables as a freckle-faced orphan, she has earned the love of the people of Avonlea and a reputation for getting into scrapes. But when Anne begins her job as the new schoolteacher, the real test of her character begins. She is learning how complicated life can be when she meddles in someone else's romance, finds two new orphans at Green Gables, and wonders about the strange behavior of the very handsome Gilbert Blythe.

Lacking health insurance when he was diagnosed with cancer, Shawn Speakman asked friends in the science fiction and fantasy writing community to donate short stories he could use to counter mounting medical debt. The result was Unfettered, an anthology offering tales from some of the best authors working today. Now, in Unfettered III, Speakman continues to pay forward the aid he received, raising money to combat medical debt for SF&F artists and authors.

He's the ass-kicking, wise-cracking, hard-drinking demon hunter you never knew you needed. He's Quincy Harker, and he's here to save your ass whether you want it or not. The immortal magic-wielding son of Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray from the classic novel Dracula, Harker now lives in North Carolina hunting down demons and sending them back to Hell. This Omnibus Edition collects the first 12 novellas in the Quincy Harker series.

O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and clever twist endings. This collection includes "The Last Leaf", "The Love Philter of Ikey Schoenstein", "The Caliph", "Cupid and the Clock", "The Brief Debut of Tildy", "The Higher Abdication", "The Ransom of Red Chief", "One Dollar’s Worth", "Cupid a la Carte", "Girl", "Springtime a la Carte", "The Ethics of Pig", "The Social Triangle", "Witches Loaves", "The Romace of the Buys Broker", and more.

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.

This classic captures the endearing relationship between a man and his grandson as they fish and hunt the lakes and woods of North Carolina. All the while the Old Man acts as teacher and guide, passing on his wisdom and life experiences to the boy, who listens in rapt fascination.

Golden Globe-winning actor Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) performs Truman Capote's masterstroke about a young writer's charmed fascination with his unorthodox neighbor, the "American geisha" Holly Golightly. Holly - a World War II-era society girl in her late teens - survives via socialization, attending parties and restaurants with men from the wealthy upper class who also provide her with money and expensive gifts. Over the course of the novella, the seemingly shallow Holly slowly opens up to the curious protagonist.

First appearing in print in 1890, the character of Sherlock Holmes has now become synonymous worldwide with the concept of a super sleuth. His creator, Conan Doyle, imbued his detective hero with intellectual power, acute observational abilities, a penchant for deductive reasoning and a highly educated use of forensic skills. Indeed, Doyle created the first fictional private detective who used what we now recognize as modern scientific investigative techniques.

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.

A fourth floor room, a door locked with the key inside, no way in, no way out. Edgar Allan Poe is the true grandfather of the murder mystery. Decades before Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, Poe gave us C. Auguste Dupin, a man able to solve mysteries through observation and deduction.

My Man Jeeves, first published in 1919, introduced the world to affable, indolent Bertie Wooster and his precise, capable valet, Jeeves. Some of the finest examples of humorous writing found in English literature are woven around the relationship between these two men of very different classes and temperaments. Where Bertie is impetuous and feeble, Jeeves is coolheaded and poised.

Nikolay is tired of his dull life working at a railway station and his loveless marriage. When he accidentally breaks a champagne bottle on New Year’ s Eve, his wife is convinced that it is an omen of bad luck to come. Nikolay, already dissatisfied with his life, thinks his wife is overreacting. His feels that not much more could go wrong in his life. Then, in the brink of his despair, a young and beautiful visitor, his wife’s aunt, arrives unexpectedly.

Miguev, a married, intelligent collegiate assessor, is haunted with anxiety and worry. Miguev has a secret that he doesn't want his wife, the town, or his colleagues to discover. His mistress, after becoming pregnant and having his child, has recently tried to extort money from him in exchange for her silence. She threatens to ruin his reputation and divulge his secret shame to everyone unless he pays her. In the height of his fear and worry about his present situation, his fears seem to come alive....