English Classic Short Stories

A masked man. A night of passion. An unexpected revelation… After months of social distancing Christy has pandemic fatigue. She needs to socialize. She needs to talk to someone who is not on Zoom. She needs…to scratch an itch. A year of isolation is a long time to be alone with nothing but her battery-operated boyfriend to keep her company. When her friend suggests they get together in real life and attend an underground masquerade party downtown, Christy decides it’s worth the risk. She shares an incredible night with a total stranger, but when the masks come off and she realizes ...

Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tales follows a party of travelers as they tell stories amongst themselves about love and chivalry, saints and legends, travel and adventure. Through allegory, satire, and humor, the tales help pass the time during their journey.

The collection that established O’Connor’s reputation as one of the American masters of the short story. The volume contains the celebrated title story, a tale of the murderous fugitive "The Misfit", as well as “The Displaced Person” and eight other stories.

This definitive audio collection, read by Stacy Keach, traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style - from the plain bald language of his first story to his mastery of seamless prose that contained a spare, eloquent pathos, as well as a sense of expansive solitude. These stories showcase the singular talent of a master, the most important American writer of the 20th century.

This audiobook, read by Audie award-winning narrators, includes unabridged recordings of all Mark Twains's greatest works: 12 novels; over 120 of his beloved short stories; Chapters From My Autobiography; 5 pieces of short non-fiction; and 6 pieces of his groundbreaking, wide-ranging travel writing.

A vintage collection of some of the greatest short stories ever written: "The Purloined Letter", by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Nose", by Nikolai Gogol; "The Story of an Hour", by Kate Chopin; "The Gift of the Magi", by O. Henry; "The Apparition of Mrs. Veal", by Daniel Defoe; "The Lifted Veil", by George Eliot; "Life of Ma Parker", by Katherine Mansfield; "The Baron", by Katherine Mansfield; "The Cask of Amontillado", by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Seventh Pullet", by Saki; and more.

H.H. Munro (Saki) is one of the undisputed masters of the short story. In this complete compendium, the full gamut of his subjects and themes is experienced. His stories are imbued with humorous satire, biting irony, and often the macabre, all of which have one target: the stupidities and hypocrisies of Edwardian upper-class society.

Science Fiction Stories 2 is an anthology of science fiction short stories that transports readers to extraordinary worlds, exploring dystopian futures, post-apocalyptic landscapes, and thrilling adventures in space. Discover the Future Experience the tension in "The Deity Above" as Larry Michaels navigates the eerie silence of his office building, uncovering unsettling secrets. Join the quest in "Salvation Quest" where Larry Drake battles against cosmic forces and personal demons on a perilous journey. Feel the impending doom in "The Encroaching Meteor" as humanity faces an existential ...

At the age of 12, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully's Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face - and heart - of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.

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.

The Unreal and the Real is a major event not to be missed. In this two-volume selection of Ursula K. Le Guin's best short stories--as selected by the National Book Award winning author herself--the reader will be delighted, provoked, amused, and faced with the sharp, satirical voice of one of the best short story writers of the present day. Where on Earth explores Le Guin's earthbound stories which range around the world, from small town Oregon to middle Europe in the middle of revolution to summer camp.

There have been few masters of the short story as popular as W. S. Maugham. His dry wit, worldweary loftiness, pungent cynicism, and penetrating powers of observation have contributed to the creation of some of the greatest short stories ever written.

Leo Tolstoy: The Complete Collection includes unabridged recordings of Leo Tolstoy's 3 timeless novels; all his major novellas and short stories; and 4 renowned works of non-fiction in one audiobook, all read by Audie Award-winning narrators.

Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. Set in the varied landscapes of Spain, Africa, and the Americam Midwest, this definitive audio collection traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style: from the plain bald language of the first story to his mastery of seamless prose that contained a spare, eloquent pathos, as well as a sense of expansive solitude.

Stories of famous monsters in a new horror anthology featuring Joe R. Lansdale, F. Paul Wilson, Jonathan Maberry, Ramsey Campbell, and many others.

Joachim Neugroschel’s brilliant new translation lets you enjoy the work of Nobel-Laureate Thomas Mann as never before. By using creative, contemporary language, Neugroschel reinterprets Mann for modern English-speaking audiences. The author’s superb literary craftsmanship, his psychological insight, and the deeply erotic content of his work shine forth in this definitive English-language version of some of his most celebrated short works. This collection features the world masterpiece

Death in Venice....

In the eight years since his first full-length novel, Gridlinked, was published by Pan Macmillan, Neal Asher has firmly established himself as one of the leading British writers of science fiction, and his novels are now translated in many languages. Most of his stories are set in a galactic future-scape called The Polity, and with this collection of marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, he takes us further into the manifold diversities of that amazing universe.

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.

From the celebrated, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and War and Peace: a lavish, masterfully rendered volume of stories by one of the most influential short fiction writers of all time.

"The Machine Stops" is a short science fiction story. It describes a world in which almost all humans have lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual lives in isolation in a "cell", with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Most humans welcome this development, as they are skeptical and fearful of first-hand experience. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own.